Pope Alexander Quotes & Sayings

Age and want sit smiling at the gate. — Alexander Pope

Every professional was once an amateur. — Alexander Pope

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit. — Alexander Pope

Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe. — Alexander Pope

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit. — Alexander Pope

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state? — Alexander Pope

Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole. — Alexander Pope

Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed. — Alexander Pope

But just disease to luxury succeeds, And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds. — Alexander Pope

Astrologers that future fates foreshow. — Alexander Pope

Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n. — Alexander Pope

The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope.
The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay. — Maureen Johnson

As with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out. — Alexander Pope

Superstition is the spleen of the soul. — Alexander Pope

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn. — Alexander Pope

To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake. — Alexander Pope

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, 'Tis for mine
For me kind nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower. — Alexander Pope

And empty heads console with empty sound. — Alexander Pope

Here thou, great Anna! Whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea. — Alexander Pope

Most authors steal their works, or buy. — Alexander Pope

The zeal of fools offends at any time. — Alexander Pope

Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew. — Alexander Pope

An honest man's the noblest work of God — Alexander Pope

A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough; a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn. — Alexander Pope

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet to run amok and tilt at all I meet. — Alexander Pope

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world. — Alexander Pope

Others import yet nobler arts from France, Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance. — Alexander Pope

Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state. — Alexander Pope

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

Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul. — Alexander Pope

Of little use, the man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show a poet's of some weight,
And (though no soldier) useful to the state,
What will a child learn sooner than a song?
What better teach a foreigner the tongue?
What's long or short, each accent where to place
And speak in public with some sort of grace? — Alexander Pope

Our business in the field of fight, Is not to question, but to prove our might. — Alexander Pope

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see — Alexander Pope

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. — Alexander Pope

Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;
Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,
Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. — Alexander Pope

Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe. — Alexander Pope

Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate and rot. — Alexander Pope

Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king. — Alexander Pope

Expression is the dress of thought. — Alexander Pope

Then sculpture and her sister arts revived; stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live. — Alexander Pope

Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste? — Alexander Pope

Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains. — Alexander Pope

Nothing is more certain than much of the force; as well as grace, of arguments or instructions depends their conciseness. — Alexander Pope

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. — Alexander Pope

The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them — Alexander Pope

To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves. — Alexander Pope

And little eagles wave their wings in gold. — Alexander Pope

Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. — Alexander Pope

... the distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject to casualties.
From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781, on Alexander Pope — Samuel Johnson

Of fight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die. — Alexander Pope

On wings of wind came flying all abroad. — Alexander Pope

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. — Alexander Pope

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God. — Alexander Pope

No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other. — Alexander Pope

It" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the "Something" in them, as Pope has it, "That gives us back the Image of our Mind." Although the perception of It must be excited by some extraordinary perturbation in the looks and personality of the adored, the aura that It broadcasts arises not merely from the singularity of an original, as Walter Benjamin supposed, but also from the fabulous success of its reproducibility in the imaginations of many others, charmed exponentially by the number of its copies. The one-of-kind item must become a type, a replicable role-icon of itself--from "a Charles Hart" or "a Nell Gwyn" to "a Mary Pickford" or "a Douglas Fairbanks"--in order to unleash the Pygmalion effect in the hearts and minds of the fans, making the idea of him or her theirs--as much or more than anything else they might call their own. — Joseph Roach

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. — Alexander Pope

A naked lover bound and bleeding lies! — Alexander Pope

Health consists with temperance alone. — Alexander Pope

While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose. — Alexander Pope

Thus God and nature linked the gen'ral frame, And bade self-love and social be the same. — Alexander Pope

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine. — Alexander Pope

Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. — Alexander Pope

Physicians are in general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know. — Alexander Pope

But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey. — Alexander Pope

At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun. — Alexander Pope

That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know. — Alexander Pope

And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. — Alexander Pope

The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man's error and misery. — Alexander Pope

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found. — Alexander Pope

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736. — Jonathan Swift

Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry. — Alexander Pope

See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep. — Alexander Pope

I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few. — Alexander Pope

It did not last: the Devil howling 'Ho, Let Einstein be,' restored the status quo. — John Collings Squire

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound. Belinda still her downy pillow prest, Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest: — Alexander Pope

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust. — Alexander Pope

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too? — Alexander Pope

Truth needs not flowers of speech. — Alexander Pope

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best. — Alexander Pope

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. — Alexander Pope

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after. — Alexander Pope

What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. — Alexander Pope

All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety! — Alexander Pope

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale. — Alexander Pope

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill:
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage. — Alexander Pope

Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed. — Alexander Pope

Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee. — Alexander Pope

Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? — Alexander Pope

Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well. — Alexander Pope

Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well? — Alexander Pope

Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics. — Alexander Pope

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence? — Alexander Pope

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. — Alexander Pope

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies. — Alexander Pope

Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride. — Alexander Pope

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel. — Alexander Pope

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes. — Alexander Pope

And soften'd sounds along the waters die: Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play. — Alexander Pope

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own? — Alexander Pope

To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence. — Alexander Pope