Alexander Pope quotes
Alexander Pope (1688–1744): English poet. The library holds 684 quotes by Alexander Pope, drawn from Essay on Man, The Iliad of Homer, The Odyssey of Homer and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, faith, nature, character, art, time
The best-known Alexander Pope quotes
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Know then this truth (enough for man to know),—“Virtue alone is happiness below.”
Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 309 -
’Tis education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.
Moral Essays. Epistle i, Line 149 -
Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii, Line 285 -
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 1 -
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 267 -
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Moral Essays. Epistle iv, Line 43 -
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light.
Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton -
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace, Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue -
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Essay on Criticism, Part iii. Line 66 -
Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 225 -
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there’s nobody at home.
Epigram -
And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 131 -
’Tis with our judgments as our watches,—none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Essay on Criticism, Part i. Line 9 -
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
The Rape of the Lock, Canto v. Line 34 -
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
The Wife of Bath. Her Prologue, Line 369 -
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 217 -
Men dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
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Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires. Line 169 -
On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 107 -
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires. Line 201 -
The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii, Line 153 -
Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules,—Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 1 -
For virtue’s self may too much zeal be had; The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Satires of Horace, Sat. I, Bk. II -
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 15 -
With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii, Line 97 -
Good nature and good sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive divine.
Essay on Criticism, Pt. I -
Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blest.
Essay on Man, Epis. i., Line 95 -
What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 215 -
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
Moral Essays. Epistle iii, Line 1 -
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 203 -
Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow proves the substance true.
Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 266 -
Who pants for glory finds but short repose: A breath revives him, or a breath o’erthrows.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i, Book ii. Line 300 -
Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,—health, peace, and competence.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 79 -
Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i, Book i. Line 103 -
Years following years steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle ii, Book ii. Line 72 -
Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
Essay on Man, Epistle II -
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 331 -
Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Essay on Man. Epistle iii, Line 177 -
Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii, Line 15 -
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
The Rape of the Lock, Canto iii. Line 21 -
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 Universal Prayer, Stanza 10 -
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
Moral Essays. Epistle iv, Line 149 -
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires. Line 315 -
One science only will one genius fit: So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Essay on Criticism, Part i. Line 60 -
What dire offence from amorous causes springs! What mighty contests rise from trivial things!
The Rape of the Lock, Canto i. Line 1 -
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 325 -
’Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
Moral Essays. Epistle i, Line 135 -
In men, we various ruling passions find; In women two almost divide the kind; Those only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
Moral Essays, Epistle II -
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.
The Rape of the Lock, Canto iii. Line 7 -
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 53 -
Woman’s at best a contradiction still.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii, Line 270 -
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires. Line 84 -
Condemned whole years in absence to deplore, And image charms he must behold no more.
Eloise to Abélard -
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed—their present state.
Essay on Man, Epistle I -
At every trifle scorn to take offence; That always shows great pride or little sense.
Essay on Criticism -
Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
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Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Essay on Man, Epis. iv., Line 57 -
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
On the Collar of a Dog -
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.
Moral Essays. Epistle i, Line 115 -
Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason,—man is not a fly.
Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 193
Where these quotes come from
- Essay on Man (91 quotes)
- The Iliad of Homer (69 quotes)
- The Odyssey of Homer (69 quotes)
- Moral Essays (51 quotes)
- Essay on Criticism (38 quotes)
- Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace (25 quotes)
- The Dunciad (23 quotes)
- Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (21 quotes)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .