Top 744 Quotes & Sayings by Alexander Pope - Page 11

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

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

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.

There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship.

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

Astrologers that future fates foreshow.

You eat, in dreams, the custard of the day.

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

True friendship's laws are by this rule express'd, Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.

The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all .

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n, Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n; But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise.

In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fixed, 'tis fixed as in a frost.

Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.

Oh! be thou blest with all that Heaven can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure-and a friend.

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!

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

The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.

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

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

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age. Pleased with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own.

From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

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!

To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines.

Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head! Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! See Mystery to Mathematics fly!

Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.

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

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state.

She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.

Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

See! From the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings; Short is his joy! He feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,-health, peace, and competence.

A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

For he lives twice who can at once employ, The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great... He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born to die, and reasoning but to err.

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state.

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

The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife, / To help me through this long disease, my life.

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old.

Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.

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

Nor in the critic let the man be lost.

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.