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
being-strong exercise mind
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
nature exercise imagination
The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like sort should our author accustom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature.
education exercise mind
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
birthday count grateful
PLeas'd look forward, pleas'd to look behind, And count each birthday with a grateful mind.
cool crowd fan flourish shall turn
Where'er you walk, cool glades shall fan the glade / Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: / Where'er you tread, the blusing flow'rs shall rise, / And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
few vicious virtue virtuous
Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.
truth
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.
english-poet instead tempts wiser
Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
english-poet faith life modes whose wrong
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
common education forms twig
'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
art chance ease easiest move true
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest.
english-poet last lay nor rule whom
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
argument delight true
True disputants are like true sportsman: their whole delight is in the pursuit.