Alexander Pope is famous for “An Essay on Criticism.” He was a critic, essayist, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of the Enlightenment. Pope is a popular figure for study in literary history. Here are a few quotes from Alexander Pope.
“All seems infected that the infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.”
Alexander Pope
“Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.”
Alexander Pope
“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
Alexander Pope
“Behold the child, by nature’s kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.”
Alexander Pope
“Good sense which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven.”
Alexander Pope
“He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.”
Alexander Pope
“Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
Alexander Pope
“If a man’s character is to be abused there’s nobody like a relative to do the business.”
Alexander Pope
“If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.”
Alexander Pope
“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
Alexander Pope
“Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.”
Alexander Pope
“Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.”
Alexander Pope
“Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet To run amuck and tilt at all I meet.”
Alexander Pope
“Such labored nothings in so strange a style, Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile.”
Alexander Pope
“Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.”
Alexander Pope
“There goes a saying, and ’twas shrewdly said, ‘Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.'”
Alexander Pope
“True, conscious honor is to feel no sin, he’s armed without that’s innocent within; be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass.”
Alexander Pope
“Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar’s mind.”
Alexander Pope
“Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?”
Alexander Pope