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
nature eye angel
Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach, from infinite to Thee, From Thee to nothing.
nature next atoms
See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
lasts next fool
Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.
son feet paper
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.
want poverty world
But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate.
powerful moving fall
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!
balance magnificence economics
To balance Fortune by a just expense, Join with Economy, Magnificence.
ambition chiefs lost
But see how oft ambition's aims are cross'd, and chiefs contend 'til all the prize is lost!
loss men common-sense
Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.
lying fame deathbed
Fame can never make us lie down contentedly on a deathbed.
book fate men
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?
laughter men laughing
The man that loves and laughs must sure do well.
convince-us water mind
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water.
mistake yesterday reverse
With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactly what you did Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before And each mistake leads back to something worse.