( English poet ) 21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744
Alexander Pope
You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.
The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.
Woman’s at best a contradiction still.
True politeness consists in being easy one’s self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
The most positive men are the most credulous.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies forever.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
There is no study that is not capable of delighting us, after a little application to it.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
‘Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.
Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Where beams of imagination play, the memory’s soft figures melt away.
The fool is happy that he knows no more.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
Wit is the lowest form of humor.
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.
On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.
To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th’ observer’s sake.
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man’s error and misery.
There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
On wrongs, swift vengeance waits.
The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.
Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.
The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.
Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.
Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
