Skip to content

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labor when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.

— Alexander Pope

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: in: Vicesimus Knox Elegant Extracts: Or, Useful and Entertaining Passages, from the Best English Authors and Translations, Volume 5, Benjamin B. Mussey, 1842, p. 160
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)

All Alexander Pope quotes →

Topics

Thanksgiving

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.

All Alexander Pope quotes →

You may also like

Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss.

Gautama Buddha

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

The king ...
like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a king and virtue.

Percy Bysshe Shelley Queen Mab (1813)

The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously.

Tom Robbins High Times interview (2002)

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.