Top 500 Alexander Pope Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil’d; if right, I kiss’d the rod.”

— Alexander Pope

252. “Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.”

— Alexander Pope

253. “But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.”

— Alexander Pope

254. “Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll’d, And vanquished realms supply recording gold?”

— Alexander Pope

255. “A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.”

— Alexander Pope

256. “Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.”

— Alexander Pope

257. “In pride, in reas’ning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the bless’d abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods.”

— Alexander Pope

258. “The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.”

— Alexander Pope

259. “Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense weigh thy opinion against Providence.”

— Alexander Pope

260. “See! From the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings; Short is his joy! He feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.”

— Alexander Pope

261. “The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.”

— Alexander Pope

262. “The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.”

— Alexander Pope

263. “Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.”

— Alexander Pope

264. “Cursed be the verse, how well so e’er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe.”

— Alexander Pope

265. “To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence.”

— Alexander Pope

266. “Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You’ve play’d, and lov’d, and ate, and drank your fill: Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage.”

— Alexander Pope

267. “Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow, proves the substance true.”

— Alexander Pope

268. “Every woman is at heart a rake.”

— Alexander Pope

269. “The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor’d through out passions shown; Or fancy’s beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.”

— Alexander Pope

270. “For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other’s aid, like man and wife.”

— Alexander Pope

271. “Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.”

— Alexander Pope

272. “Truth shines the brighter, clad in verse.”

— Alexander Pope

273. “How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?”

— Alexander Pope

274. “Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows.”

— Alexander Pope

275. “An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.”

— Alexander Pope

276. “Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, and fills up all the mighty void of sense.”

— Alexander Pope

277. “The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”

— Alexander Pope

278. “Sleep and death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace.”

— Alexander Pope

279. “For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight; his can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”

— Alexander Pope

280. “From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.”

— Alexander Pope

281. “What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.”

— Alexander Pope

282. “Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.”

— Alexander Pope

283. “And seem to walk on wings, and tread in air.”

— Alexander Pope

284. “Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”

— Alexander Pope

285. “Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.”

— Alexander Pope

286. “Do you find yourself making excuses when you do not perform? Shed the excuses and face reality. Excuses are the loser’s way out. They will mar your credibility and stunt your personal growth.”

— Alexander Pope

287. “The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.”

— Alexander Pope

288. “Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.”

— Alexander Pope

289. “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 with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.”

— Alexander Pope

290. “On cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.”

— Alexander Pope

291. “Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense.”

— Alexander Pope

292. “A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.”

— Alexander Pope

293. “Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.”

— Alexander Pope

294. “Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide, First strip off all her equipage of Pride, Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress, Or Learning’s Luxury or idleness, Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain.”

— Alexander Pope

295. “You eat, in dreams, the custard of the day.”

— Alexander Pope

296. “Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender or too firm a heart, To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky For those who greatly think, or bravely die?”

— Alexander Pope

297. “Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.”

— Alexander Pope

298. “The soul’s calm sunshine and heartfelt joy.”

— Alexander Pope

299. “Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.”

— Alexander Pope

300. “Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,-health, peace, and competence.”

— Alexander Pope