Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was one of the most vivid poets and extraordinary satirists to have ever written in the English language. In his remarkable career, Pope set the standard for poetry and the moral and philosophical thinking that defined his age.
Born in London to Catholic parents in Protestant England, Pope faced virulent anti-Catholic sentiment and laws. Catholics were forbidden to attend university, hold public office, own property, and even live within 10 miles of London. Pope was denied access to the best schools and a university. His aunt taught him to read, and a priest taught him Greek and Latin. At age eight, Pope was captivated by the works of Homer. Later, in his thirties, he published English translations of Homer’s Illiad (1720) and Odyssey (1726)—these works are now considered Pope’s most significant literary accomplishments.
Pope’s first literary success came just before his 23rd birthday when he published a 744-line poem called An Essay on Criticism (1711) about the history of literature. Not only did this poem make Pope famous for his attack of contemporaneous literary critics, but it also became one of the most quoted verses in the English language.
Pope was the first English poet who financially supported himself through only his writing. He was also the first English writer to have translations of his poems into other languages and become famous all over Europe—all during his lifetime. He is the second most frequently quoted writer in the English language after Shakespeare.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alexander Pope
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Poetry
Jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Politics
For virtue’s self may too much zeal be had; the worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Fanaticism, Insanity, Zeal
Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Party
Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Memory
To whom can riches give repute, or trust, content, or pleasure, but the good and the just?
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Wealth, Difficulty
I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.
—Alexander Pope
Wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense!
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Solitude
What conscience dictates to be done, or warns me not to do, this teach me more than hell to shun, that more than heaven pursue.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Conscience
There should be as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty, as a man for his prosperity, both being equally subject to change.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Beauty
Damn with faint praise.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Praise
The general cry is against ingratitude, but the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity; none but direct villains are capable of wilful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he hath done more than another deserves, while the other thinks he hath received less than he deserves.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Vanity
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, and though no science, fairly worth the seven.
—Alexander Pope
But thousands die without or this or that, die, and endow a college, or a cat: To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, Tenrich a bastard, or a son they hate.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Inheritance
Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Attitude
Order is heaven’s first law.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Order
Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Happiness
Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it, added something new,
And all who heard it, made Enlargements too,
In every Ear it spread, on every Tongue it grew.
—Alexander Pope
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, they rise, they break, and to that sea return.
—Alexander Pope
Thee too, my Paridel! she mark’d thee there,
Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yarn confess
The Pains and Penalties of Idleness.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Idleness
There is no study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Study
Silence! coeval with eternity! thou wert ere Nature’s self began to be; thine was the sway ere heaven was formed on earth, ere fruitful thought conceived creation’s birth.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Silence
I am his Highness dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Class
What is it to be wise? – ‘Tis but to know how little can be known – to see all others’ faults and feel our own.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Wisdom
He that would pun would pink a pocket.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Wit
Die and endow a college or a cat.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Inheritance
All other goods by fortune’s hand are given: A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Wife
Looks through nature up to nature’s God.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Nature
Two purposes in human nature rule. Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Motivation, Motivational
There Affectation, with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Worry, Affectation, Goals
In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind’s concern is charity.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Giving, Service, Charity, Faith, Kindness
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Justice, Trials
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Absence
The proper study of mankind is man.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Man
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Business
Curst be the verse how well so’er it flow, that tends to make one worthy man my foe, gives virtue scandal, innocence a fear, or from the soft-eyed virgin steals a tear.
—Alexander Pope
Curse on all laws, but those that love has made.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Law, Lawyers
Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Virtues, Virtue
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
you played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:
walk sober off; before a sprightlier age comes tittering on,
and shoves you from the stage:
leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Retirement, Aging, Age
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. However, such instruments are, perhaps, necessary; for it may be with states as with clocks, which must have some dead weight hanging at them, to help and regulate the motion of the finer and more useful parts.
—Alexander Pope
Topics: Ignorance
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