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

— Alexander Pope

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Dunciad, IV. 269. A notion of Aristotle's that there was originally in every block of marble, a statue, which would appear on the removal of the superfluous parts.
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Alexander Pope

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

An Essay on Criticism (1711)

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

The Rape of the Lock (1712)

Say, is not absence death to those who love?

Pastorals (1709)

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Topics

Education

More quotes by Alexander Pope

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

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The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Pope (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.