Alexander Pope Quotes

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

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray, tell me sir, whose dog are you?

Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.

Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires.

O! would the Sons of Men once think their Eyes And Reason giv’n them but to study Flies? See Nature in some partial narrow shape, And let the Author of the Whole escape.

She marked thee there, Stretched on the rack of a too easy chair, And heard thy everlasting yawn confess The pains and penalties of idleness.

Love-whispering woods, and lute-resounding waves.

Isles of fragrance, lily-silver’d values.

How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, The body’s harmony, the beaming soul.

The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.

Whate’er the talents, or howe’er designed, We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.

None need a guide, by sure attraction led, And strong impulsive gravity of head.

How little, mark! that portion of the ball, Where, faint at best, the beams of science fall.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.

In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief, in Tibbald’s monster-breeding breast; Sees Gods with Daemons in strange league ingage, And earth, and heav’n, and hell her battles wage.

While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

Here gay Description Aegypt glads with showers; Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers; Glitt’ring with ice here hoary hills are seen, There painted vallies of eternal green.