535 quotes
Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call;
She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.
The Temple of Fame (1711)
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.
An Essay on Criticism (1709)
Regard not then if Wit be old or new,
But blame the false, and value still the true.
'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
When to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find it instruments of ill.
The Rape of the Lock (1712)
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
An Essay on Criticism (1709)
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.
An Essay on Criticism (1711)
That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.
All other goods by fortune's hand are given,
A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven.
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt,
And most contemptible to shun contempt.
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
The rest on outside merit but presume,
Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room.
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
The Rape of the Lock (1712)
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
The Rape of the Lock (1717)
Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
But like a shadow proves the substance true.
Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
The Rape of the Lock (1712)