Alexander Pope
75 quotations
One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.
There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned; By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Be not the first by which a new thing is tried, or the last to lay the old aside.
Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.
On wrongs swift vengeance waits.
Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.
To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but never so well expressed.
Most women have no characters at all.
Most authors steal their works, or buy.
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?
Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
I am his Highness dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.