Top 500 Alexander Pope Quotes (2023 Update)
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301. “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

302. “When we are young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we perceive it is too late to live as we proposed.”

— Alexander Pope

303. “No creature smarts so little as a fool.”

— Alexander Pope

304. “A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.”

— Alexander Pope

305. “O happiness! our being’s end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate’er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.”

— Alexander Pope

306. “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

307. “Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect’s gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?”

— Alexander Pope

308. “Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.”

— Alexander Pope

309. “If it be the chief point of friendship to comply with a friends motions and inclinations, he possesses this in a eminent degree; he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk, which is more than many good friends can pretend to do.”

— Alexander Pope

310. “Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil’d on mountains to the skies? Heav’n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.”

— Alexander Pope

311. “Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.”

— Alexander Pope

312. “There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.”

— Alexander Pope

313. “Cavil you may, but never criticise.”

— Alexander Pope

314. “Whate’er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself.”

— Alexander Pope

315. “And write about it, Goddess, and about it!”

— Alexander Pope

316. “Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.”

— Alexander Pope

317. “The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.”

— Alexander Pope

318. “Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?”

— Alexander Pope

319. “Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.”

— Alexander Pope

320. “A naked lover bound and bleeding lies!”

— Alexander Pope

321. “Be sure yourself and your own reach to know How far your genius taste and learning go.”

— Alexander Pope

322. “New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise: So pleas’d at first, the towring Alps we try,...”

— Alexander Pope

323. “Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.”

— Alexander Pope

324. “Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.”

— Alexander Pope

325. “Never elated while one man’s oppress’d; Never dejected while another’s blessed.”

— Alexander Pope

326. “Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all.”

— Alexander Pope

327. “Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true, But are not critics to their judgment, too?”

— Alexander Pope

328. “Ah! why, ye Gods, should two and two make four?”

— Alexander Pope

329. “What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.”

— Alexander Pope

330. “Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, their beauty withered, and their verdure lost!”

— Alexander Pope

331. “A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”

— Alexander Pope

332. “The proper study of Mankind is Man.”

— Alexander Pope

333. “By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne’er obliged.”

— Alexander Pope

334. “Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I’ll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”

— Alexander Pope

335. “Then marble, soften’d into life, grew warm.”

— Alexander Pope

336. “A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.”

— Alexander Pope

337. “And not a vanity is given in vain.”

— Alexander Pope

338. “What riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. What more? Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little?”

— Alexander Pope

339. “Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.”

— Alexander Pope

340. “Age and want sit smiling at the gate.”

— Alexander Pope

341. “Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?”

— Alexander Pope

342. “One self-approving hour whole years outweighs.”

— Alexander Pope

343. “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

344. “Is not absence death to those who love?”

— Alexander Pope

345. “Get your enemy to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you.”

— Alexander Pope

346. “Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother About one vice and fall into another.”

— Alexander Pope

347. “When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground. I would enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive and seeing another enjoy it.”

— Alexander Pope

348. “Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think or bravely die?”

— Alexander Pope

349. “The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.”

— Alexander Pope

350. “Love the offender, yet detest the offense.”

— Alexander Pope