Top 500 Alexander Pope Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fixed, ’tis fixed as in a frost.”

— Alexander Pope

102. “True politeness consists in being easy one’s self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.”

— Alexander Pope

103. “Who are next to knaves? Those that converse with them.”

— Alexander Pope

104. “But if you’ll prosper, mark what I advise, Whom age, and long experience render wise.”

— Alexander Pope

105. “While man exclaims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pamper’d goose.”

— Alexander Pope

106. “But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat, The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat, To closer shades the panting flocks remove; Ye gods! And is there no relief for love?”

— Alexander Pope

107. “Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry.”

— Alexander Pope

108. “Where’er you walk cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade. Where’er you tread the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.”

— Alexander Pope

109. “Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.”

— Alexander Pope

110. “Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.”

— Alexander Pope

111. “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.”

— Alexander Pope

112. “Time conquers all, and we must time obey.”

— Alexander Pope

113. “Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.”

— Alexander Pope

114. “What’s fame? a fancy’d life in other’s breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.”

— Alexander Pope

115. “Nay, fly to altars; there they’ll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

— Alexander Pope

116. “That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.”

— Alexander Pope

117. “Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?”

— Alexander Pope

118. “A generous friendship no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.”

— Alexander Pope

119. “Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old.”

— Alexander Pope

120. “Music the fiercest grief can charm, And fate’s severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above.”

— Alexander Pope

121. “To the Elysian shades dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades.”

— Alexander Pope

122. “Die of a rose in aromatic pain.”

— Alexander Pope

123. “If I am right, Thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O, teach my heart To find that better way!”

— Alexander Pope

124. “Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.”

— Alexander Pope

125. “You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there’s no body at home.”

— Alexander Pope

126. “What dire offence from am’rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,...”

— Alexander Pope

127. “But thousands die without or this or that, Die, and endow a college or a cat.”

— Alexander Pope

128. “The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.”

— Alexander Pope

129. “But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey.”

— Alexander Pope

130. “The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife gives all the strength and color of our life.”

— Alexander Pope

131. “The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.”

— Alexander Pope

132. “A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.”

— Alexander Pope

133. “Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.”

— Alexander Pope

134. “Expression is the dress of thought.”

— Alexander Pope

135. “Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.”

— Alexander Pope

136. “Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust.”

— Alexander Pope

137. “Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.”

— Alexander Pope

138. “Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow’r which suits them best.”

— Alexander Pope

139. “Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.”

— Alexander Pope

140. “Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.”

— Alexander Pope

141. “The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy – their own self-love.”

— Alexander Pope

142. “The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.”

— Alexander Pope

143. “A youth of frolic, an old age of cards.”

— Alexander Pope

144. “Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail. Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.”

— Alexander Pope

145. “Where London’s column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.”

— Alexander Pope

146. “Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.”

— Alexander Pope

147. “An obstinate person does not hold opinions; they hold them.”

— Alexander Pope

148. “Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call, And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.”

— Alexander Pope

149. “As some to Church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there.”

— Alexander Pope

150. “Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.”

— Alexander Pope