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Quotes from The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope — Alexander Pope

1688–1744 England

← All quotes by Alexander Pope

11 quotes

I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

How loved, how honored once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be Scholars, and yet be angry to find us so.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
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.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.

The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Attribution

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