Top 744 Quotes & Sayings by Alexander Pope - Page 9

True self-love and social are the same.

The zeal of fools offends at any time.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.

No more was seen the human form divine.

Our grandsire, Adam, ere of Eve possesst, Alone, and e'en in Paradise unblest, With mournful looks the blissful scenes survey'd, And wander'd in the solitary shade. The Maker say, took pity, and bestow'd Woman, the last, the best reserv'd of God.

Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.

Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person; they make friendships as kings of old made leagues, who sacrificed some poor animal betwixt them, and commenced strict allies; so the ladies, after they have pulled some character to pieces, are from henceforth inviolable friends.

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

Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.

I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad but new; While if our Elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon but Applause.

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain; And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain

Though triumphs were to generals only due, crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.

Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last.

There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead.

Good-humor only teaches charms to last, Still makes new conquests and maintains the past.

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that no action could attend, And, but for this, were active to no end: Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void, Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd; Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

Jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state.

There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day.

Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day, Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away; . . . . To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint, Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.

So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.

But touch me, and no minister so sore. Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burthen of some merry song.

What so pure, which envious tongues will spare? Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair, With matchless impudence they style a wife, The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life; A bosom serpent, a domestic evil, A night invasion, and a mid-day devil; Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard, But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard.

For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.

If it be the chief point of friendship to comply with a friends motions and inclinations, he possesses this in a eminent degree; he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk, which is more than many good friends can pretend to do.

Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are madeTaller or stronger than the weeds they shade?Or ask of yonder argent fields above,Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight; his can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit With the same spirit that its author writ: Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind.

Music the fiercest grief can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above.

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.

A fly, a grape-stone, or a hair can kill.

So upright Quakers please both man and God.

Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother About one vice and fall into another.

When to mischief mortals bend their will, how soon they find it instruments of ill.

Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.

Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation's aid, But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all!

Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself.

A gen'rous heart repairs a sland'rous tongue.

There are certain times when most people are in a disposition of being informed, and 'tis incredible what a vast good a little truth might do, spoken in such seasons.

Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.

All nature's diff'rence keeps all nature's peace.

Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.

Ladies, like variegated tulips, show 'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe.

By music minds an equal temper know, Nor swell too high, nor sink too low. . . . . Warriors she fires with animated sounds. Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds.

Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies From head to ears, and now from ears to eyes.

The search of our future being is but a needless, anxious, and haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what, without all this solicitude, we shall know a little later.

I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.

The life of a wit is a warfare upon earth.

Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.

A field of glory is a field for all.

Genius involves both envy and calumny.

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.