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
fate men submit
Monuments, like men, submit to fate.
laughter majority
The laughers are a majority.
kings enemy tools
A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough; a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.
heart rakes intrigue
Every woman is at heart a rake.
art honor inventor
Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him.
running men gossip
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.
fields glory
A field of glory is a field for all.
envy genius calumny
Genius involves both envy and calumny.
people kind virtue
Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.
future knowing littles
The search of our future being is but a needless, anxious, and haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what, without all this solicitude, we shall know a little later.
forget forgetfulness hardest
It is sure the hardest science to forget!
flower fruit gone
The flower's are gone when the Fruits appear to ripen.
lying dull cunning
The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.
character air use
What then remains, but well our power to use, And keep good-humor still whate'er we lose? And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.