Alexander Pope is regarded as the greatest English poet of his age, the early eighteenth century. He is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry, which includes The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, as well as for his translation of Homer. Famous Alexander Pope quotes will get you thinking, enrich your perspective, and bring the best out of you.
If you’re searching for famous life sayings that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of wise William Shakespeare quotes, top Edgar Allan Poe quotes, and best Kahlil Gibran quotes.
Famous Alexander Pope Quotes
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
Act well your part; there all the honour lies.
If you want to know what God thinks about money just look at the people He gives it to.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.
You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
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.
Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
All Nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good.
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.
An honest man’s the noblest work of God
Music resembles poetry, in each Are nameless graces which no methods teach, And which a master hand alone can reach.
Whatever is, is right.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own
If I am right, Thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O, teach my heart To find that better way!
No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her; but mainly a woman hates a man for being her friend.
The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
And die of nothing but a rage to live
This long disease, my life.
The world forgetting by the world forgot.
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool. But you yourself may prove to show it, Every fool is not a poet.
Order is heaven’s first law.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Some who grow dull religious straight commence And gain in morals what they lose in sense.
Inspirational Alexander Pope Quotes
Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!
For forms of Government let fools contest. Whate’er is best administered is best.
Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.
For he lives twice who can at once employ, The present well, and e’en the past enjoy.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God afraid of me.
Averse alike to flatter, or offend; Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.
What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heaven pursue.
Then most our trouble still when most admired, And still the more we give, the more required; Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease, Sure some to vex, but never all to please.
Know thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Men, some to business take, some to pleasure take; but every woman is at heart a rake
A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed; What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.
Next o’er his books his eyes began to roll, In pleasing memory of all he stole.
Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit.
How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains, Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains: That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace, Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face!
Sure flattery never traveled so far as three thousand miles; it is now only for truth, which over takes all things, to reach you at this distance.
We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives them to.
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day, Charm’d the small-pox, or chased old age away; Who would not scorn what housewife’s cares produce, Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know, Make use of ev’ry friend—and ev’ry foe.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heav’n bestows on thee.
Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
Intrepid then, o’er seas and lands he flew: Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie
Where beams of imagination play, The memory’s soft figures melt away.
