241 quotes found
Poet · English · 1688–1744
English poet (1688–1744)
“Order is heaven's first law.”
“Wit is the lowest form of humor.”
“Alive ridiculous and dead forgot?”
“Never find fault with the absent.”
“To err is human to forgive divine.”
“True wit is nature to advantage dressed;What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.”
“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”
“If I am right, Thy grace impartStill in the right to stay;If I am wrong, O, teach my heartTo find that better way!”
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stoneTell where I lie.”
“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
“Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,With too much quickness ever to be taught,With too much thinking to have common thought:You purchase pain w...”
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,and drinking largely sobers us again.”
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic s...”
“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
“To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart”
“True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives us back the image of our mind.As shades more swe...”
“The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,Are what ten thousand envy and adore:All, all look up, with reverential Awe,At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law:While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, dail...”
“Remembrance and reflection how allied!What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!”
“Some who grow dull religious straight commenceAnd gain in morals what they lose in sense.”
“Music resembles poetry, in eachAre nameless graces which no methods teach,And which a master hand alone can reach.”
“In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods,...”
“Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to seeMen not afraid of God afraid of me.”
“Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,In pleasing memory of all he stole.”