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
Alexander Pope quotes about
curse law-and-lawyers love
Curse on all laws, but those that love has made.
angels english-poet fear fools rush
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
harmony nature partial spite thou truth universal unknown whatever
All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right
believes judgment-and-judges judgments
It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
sound speech empty
And empty heads console with empty sound.
time sticks trifles
I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me.
reign fickle crowns
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
expression poetry dresses
Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry.
vices sometimes virtue
Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed.
numbers lisp
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
coins dear grows
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old.
toil lovers force
For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends
soil bears influence
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate. In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
lines taste chaos
Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.