Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Popewas an 18th-century English poet. He is best known for his satirical verse, as well as for his translation of Homer. Famous for his use of the heroic couplet, he is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth21 May 1688
mean simplicity ostentation
Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity.
sin offense offence
Love the offender, yet detest the offense.
next knaves converses
Who are next to knaves? Those that converse with them.
women riddle please
Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer once we know them.
laughing world proud
The world is a thing we must of necessity either laugh at or be angry at; if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; if we are angry at it, they say we are ill-natured.
giving world fool
The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.
self order judging
Get your enemy to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you.
common-sense half fine
Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.
block vulgarity-is razors
To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
love men names
No, make me mistress to the man I love; If there be yet another name more free More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!
dog angel thinking
To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence.
wise pain eye
No Senses stronger than his brain can bear. Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly: What the advantage, if his finer eyes Study a Mite, not comprehend the Skies?... Or quick Effluvia darting thro' his brain, Die of a Rose, in Aromatic pain? If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres... Who finds not Providence all-good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
blow snow december
On cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
money people giving
We may see the small value God has for riches, by the people he gives them to.