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
believe men worst-enemy
The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy--their own self-love.
causes muse poet
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my muse began, with who shall end.
men dinner poet
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.
eye hands pleasure
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; And when in act they cease, in prospect rise.
contentment ease action
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.
giving alive charity
When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground. I would enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive and seeing another enjoy it.
character past lasts
Good-humor only teaches charms to last, Still makes new conquests and maintains the past.
god lows bounds
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all!
men gowns crowns
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
reign fickle crowns
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
suffering fool pardon
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.
fame breaths
What is fame? a fancied life in others' breath.
dream add invention
Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.
saint lawns
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.