Alexander Pope
What is fame? a fancied life in others' breath.Collection: Fame
Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right.Collection: Morning
No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other.Collection: Writing
There is but one way I know of conversing safely with all men; that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by saying or doing nothing that deserves to be concealed.Collection: Men
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise.Collection: Wise
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!Collection: Love
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.Collection: Wind
The approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade.Collection: Fall
And not a vanity is given in vain.Collection: Vanity
Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well.Collection: Teaching
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.Collection: Learning
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.Collection: Husband
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.Collection: Sunshine
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,-health, peace, and competence.Collection: Peace
Search then the ruling passion: This clue, once found, unravels all the rest.Collection: Passion
Where beams of imagination play, the memory's soft figures melt away.Collection: Inspirational
But just disease to luxury succeeds, And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds.Collection: Disease And Death
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.Collection: Hurt
Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.Collection: Wise
The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.Collection: Ajax
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven.Collection: Heaven
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.Collection: Blood
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.Collection: Life
There are some solitary wretches who seem to have left the rest of mankind, only, as Eve left Adam, to meet the devil in private.Collection: Loneliness
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.Collection: Kings
Superstition is the spleen of the soul.Collection: Soul
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, who never mentions hell to ears polite.Collection: Ears
Monuments, like men, submit to fate.Collection: Fate
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!Collection: Rome
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.Collection: Kings
The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.Collection: Sick
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day.Collection: Cheerful
The hog that ploughs not, not obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.Collection: Lord
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.Collection: Future
Tis use alone that sanctifies expense And splendor borrow all her rays from sense.Collection: Rays
Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm.Collection: Sculpture
Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?Collection: Butterfly
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me.Collection: Sunday
See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.Collection: Christian
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!Collection: Light
Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.Collection: Dream