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Alexander Pope Quotes

1688–1744 England

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) was a poet and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents. Considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century and a master of the heroic couplet, he is best known for satirical and discursive poetry.

England
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Essayists
Poets
Satirists

Also known as: Pope, Alexander

Random Alexander Pope quote

535 quotes

Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.

How shall I lose the sin yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest the offence?

Eloise to Abelard (1717)

He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day.

So perish all whose breast ne'er learned to glow
For other's good or melt at other's woe.

With him most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

An Essay on Criticism (1709)

Piecemeal they win this acre first then, that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.

Fool, 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam:
Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

For virtue's self may too much zeal be had;
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Grave authors say, and witty poets sing,
That honest wedlock is a glorious thing.

From hyperborean skies,
Embodied dark, what clouds of vandals rise.

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

In a sadly pleasing strain
Let the warbling lute complain.

Unthought-of Frailties cheat us in the Wise.

Round broken columns clasping ivy twin'd

Windsor Forest (1713)

Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.

Truth needs no flowers of speech.

See plastic Nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.

Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness;
But mutual wants this happiness increase,
All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace.

Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools and pageant of a day;
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

Memory of an Unfortunate Lady (1717)

Some positive persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last.

An Essay on Criticism (1709)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Pope (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.