Alexander Pope
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise: So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try.Collection: Science
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound, And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.Collection: Future
Who pants for glory, finds but short repose; A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.Collection: Pants
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.Collection: Dog
Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.Collection: Lasts
Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!Collection: Peace
Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn; A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn: A Judge is just, a Chanc'llor juster still; A Gownman learn'd; a Bishop what you will; Wise if a minister; but if a King, More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything.Collection: Wise
The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?Collection: Peculiar
Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.Collection: Son
There various news I heard of love and strife,Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life,Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,The fall of favourites, projects of the great,Of aid mismanagements, taxations new:All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.Collection: Stars
He knows to live who keeps the middle state, and neither leans on this side nor on that.Collection: Sides
But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.Collection: Writing
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!Collection: Happiness
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?Collection: Book
The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy--their own self-love.Collection: Believe
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.Collection: Moving
The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.Collection: Strength
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.Collection: Kissing
Silence! coeval with eternity! thou wert ere Nature's self began to be; thine was the sway ere heaven was formed on earth, ere fruitful thought conceived creation's birth.Collection: Self
Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.Collection: Learning
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.Collection: Book
A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.Collection: Men
Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds.Collection: Tyrants
Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, their beauty withered, and their verdure lost!Collection: Winter
A gen'rous heart repairs a sland'rous tongue.Collection: Heart
I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.Collection: Believe
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose.Collection: Men
How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?Collection: Dog
Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.Collection: Past
Virtue alone is happiness below.Collection: Virtue
But thousands die without or this or that, Die, and endow a college or a cat.Collection: Cat
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.Collection: Suffering
The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.Collection: Years
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.Collection: Art
Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year.Collection: Years
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.Collection: Fall
Music resembles poetry, in each Are nameless graces which no methods teach, And which a master hand alone can reach.Collection: Hands
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.Collection: Book
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.Collection: Instinct
Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call.Collection: Favors
And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.Collection: Fate