Sourced and curated.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 7.0

To err is human, to forgive divine.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 7.0

Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Letters of Alexander Pope · 1735

★ 5.4

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.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 5.2

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

The Rape of the Lock · 1714

★ 4.5

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

1727

★ 3.7

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

1700

★ 3.6

Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground.

1700

★ 3.6

True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 3.6

Essay

1727

★ 3.6

How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

1732

★ 3.6

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered is best.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 3.6

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 3.6

The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still.

1733

★ 3.6

Teach me to feel another's wo, To hide the fault I see: That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.

1738

★ 3.6

I think it was a generous thought, and one that flowed from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world.

1716

★ 3.5

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.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 3.5

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the skeptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much; Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 3.5

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 2.9

They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.

1704

★ 2.0

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 1.9

Some praise at morning what they blame at night; But always think the last opinion right.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 1.9

But where's the man, who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

1711

★ 1.9

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

1727

★ 1.9

Epitaph

1730

★ 1.9

Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 1.9

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.

An Essay on Man · 1733

★ 1.9

Wheree'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

1709

★ 1.9

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.

1713

★ 1.9

Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the very sin itself: the thirst of gain was their crime, that thirst continued became their punishment and ruin.

1720

★ 1.9

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.

1735

★ 1.9

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.