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
flattery obliged flatterer
By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.
inspirational art yield
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; The arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave.
truth flower speech
Truth needs not flowers of speech.
simplicity majesty
There is a majesty in simplicity.
farewell sleep years
Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!
dog thinking sky
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
atheist hypocrite mad
An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.
hands agriculture oats
Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand.
memories play imagination
Where beams of imagination play, the memory's soft figures melt away...
kindness men doe
Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
order government pieces
The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.
science eels library
How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail!
change past path
When to the Permanent is sacrificed the Mutable, the prize is thine: the drop returneth whence it came. The Open Path leads to the changeless change - Non-Being, the glorious state of Absoluteness, the Bliss past human thought.
poetry pardon burned
For what I have publish'd, I can only hope to be pardon'd; but for what I have burned, I deserve to be prais'd.