Top 500 Alexander Pope Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “The sound must seem an echo to the sense.”

— Alexander Pope

302. “She who ne’er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.”

— Alexander Pope

303. “Know then, unnumber’d Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky.”

— Alexander Pope

304. “Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes: the glorious fault of angels and of gods.”

— Alexander Pope

305. “All nature is but art unknown to thee.”

— Alexander Pope

306. “Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last.”

— Alexander Pope

307. “No, make me mistress to the man I love; If there be yet another name more free More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!”

— Alexander Pope

308. “The lot of man – to suffer and to die.”

— Alexander Pope

309. “Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

311. “Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; The arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

314. “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

315. “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

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

318. “Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

321. “At ev’ry word a reputation dies.”

— Alexander Pope

322. “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

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

327. “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

328. “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

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

— Alexander Pope

330. “Unblemish’d let me live or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!”

— Alexander Pope

331. “And soften’d sounds along the waters die: Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play.”

— Alexander Pope

332. “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

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

— Alexander Pope

334. “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

335. “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

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

338. “Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault;. Say rather, man’s as perfect as he ought.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

344. “If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope

349. “The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.”

— Alexander Pope

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

— Alexander Pope