295 Famous Quotes by Alexander Pope
5/21/1688 - 5/30/1744
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About Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. Famous for his use of the heroic couplet, he is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson.
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
Forever sep'rate, yet forever near!
Swine
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Man (ep. I, l. 221)
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The hog that ploughs not, not obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.
Swine
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Man (ep. III, l. 41)
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Others import yet nobler arts from France,
Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance.
Dancing
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: The Dunciad (bk. IV, l. 597)
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What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Pride
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Criticism (l. 203)
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In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Pride
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Man (ep. I, l. 124)
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Lely on animated canvas stole
The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul.
Painting
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Second Book of Horace (ep. I, l. 149)
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But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain.
The wond'ring forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call.
And headlong streams hand listening in their fall!
Singing
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Summer (l. 81)
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Be niggards of advice on no pretense;
For the worst avarice is that of sense.
Advice
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Criticism (l. 578)
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Condemned whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more.
Absence
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Eloise to Abelard (l. 361)
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Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly,
The light Militia of the lower sky.
Spirits
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Rape of the Lock (I, 41)
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A long, exact, and serious comedy;
In every scene some moral let it teach,
And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Acting
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Epistle to Miss Blount--With the Works of Voiture (l. 22)
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There still remains to mortify a wit
The many-headed monster of the pit.
Acting
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Horace (ep. I, bk. II, l. 30)
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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.
Acting
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Prologue to Addison's Cato (l. 1)
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Your scene precariously subsists too long,
On French translation and Italian song.
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
Acting
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Prologue to Addison's Cato (l. 42)
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Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
But like a shadow, proves the substance true.
Envy
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Criticism (pt. II, l. 266)
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Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave,
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave.
Envy
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Man (ep. II, l. 191)
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All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
Suspicion
Quotes, by Alexander Pope , Source: Essay on Criticism (l. 568)
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