Top 500 Alexander Pope Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o’er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.”

— Alexander Pope

452. “A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.”

— Alexander Pope

453. “So modern ’pothecaries, taught the art By doctor’s bills to play the doctor’s part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.”

— Alexander Pope

454. “Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men’s houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.”

— Alexander Pope

455. “Still follow sense, of ev’ry art the soul, Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole.”

— Alexander Pope

456. “The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.”

— Alexander Pope

457. “Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics.”

— Alexander Pope

458. “Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit, There is no cure ’gainst age but it.”

— Alexander Pope

459. “Health consists with temperance alone.”

— Alexander Pope

460. “The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.”

— Alexander Pope

461. “Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation’s aid, But bribes a senate, and the land’s betray’d.”

— Alexander Pope

462. “Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content, And the gay Conscience of a life well spent, Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace, Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.”

— Alexander Pope

463. “If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?”

— Alexander Pope

464. “Genius involves both envy and calumny.”

— Alexander Pope

465. “Soft o’er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath.”

— Alexander Pope

466. “See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.”

— Alexander Pope

467. “Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one’s self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one.”

— Alexander Pope

468. “There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead.”

— Alexander Pope

469. “Never was it given to mortal man – To lie so boldly as we women can.”

— Alexander Pope

470. “And more than echoes talk along the walls.”

— Alexander Pope

471. “Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.”

— Alexander Pope

472. “He who serves his brother best gets nearer God than all the rest.”

— Alexander Pope

473. “Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, Stays till we call, and then not often near.”

— Alexander Pope

474. “Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.”

— Alexander Pope

475. “Good-humor only teaches charms to last, Still makes new conquests and maintains the past.”

— Alexander Pope

476. “Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my muse began, with who shall end.”

— Alexander Pope

477. “Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.”

— Alexander Pope

478. “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.”

— Alexander Pope

479. “Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she’ll hate you while you live.”

— Alexander Pope

480. “In this commonplace world every one is said to be romantic who either admires a fine thing or does one.”

— Alexander Pope

481. “What bosom beast not in his country’s cause?”

— Alexander Pope

482. “How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!”

— Alexander Pope

483. “Who dare to love their country, and be poor.”

— Alexander Pope

484. “No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other.”

— Alexander Pope

485. “And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.”

— Alexander Pope

486. “To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.”

— Alexander Pope

487. “The zeal of fools offends at any time.”

— Alexander Pope

488. “I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”

— Alexander Pope

489. “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.”

— Alexander Pope

490. “The good must merit God’s peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?”

— Alexander Pope

491. “I have more zeal than wit.”

— Alexander Pope

492. “Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them a while, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new all they got by the old ones.”

— Alexander Pope

493. “O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize, And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.”

— Alexander Pope

494. “While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.”

— Alexander Pope

495. “Live like yourself, was soon my lady’s word, And lo! two puddings smok’d upon the board.”

— Alexander Pope

496. “And empty heads console with empty sound.”

— Alexander Pope

497. “O let us still the secret joy partake, To follow virtue even for virtue’s sake.”

— Alexander Pope

498. “Physicians are in general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know.”

— Alexander Pope

499. “A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.”

— Alexander Pope

500. “It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.”

— Alexander Pope