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Alexander Pope on Graduation

1688–1744 England

← All quotes by Alexander Pope

14 quotes

This education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

Yet eat in dreams, the custard of the day.

And better skilled in dark events to come.

The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won.

The Dunciad (1728)

Men must be taught as if you taught them not
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

'Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

Then take him to develop, if you can
And hew the block off, and get out the man.

Oh, blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven.

In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

An Essay on Criticism (1711)

So watchful Bruin forms with plastic care,
Each growing lump and brings it to a bear.

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave.

Ask of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these.

Attribution

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