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The Life Of A Wit Is A Warfare Upon Earth.

-Alexander Pope

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The Life Of A

Alexander Pope

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The Life Of A Wit Is A Warfare Upon Earth.

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Fame, Wealth, And Honour! What Are You To Love?

Old Politicians Chew On Wisdom Past, And Totter On In Business To The Last.

Who Ne'er Knew Joy But Friendship Might Divide,or Gave His Father Grief But When He Died.

The Good Must Merit God's Peculiar Care; But Who But God Can Tell Us Who They Are?

Some People Are Commended For A Giddy Kind Of Good-humor, Which Is As Much A Virtue As Drunkenness.

Fair Tresses Man's Imperial Race Ensnare; And Beauty Draws Us With A Single Hair.

A Man Of Business May Talk Of Philosophy; A Man Who Has None May Practice It.

There Are Certain Times When Most People Are In A Disposition Of Being Informed, And 'tis Incredible What A Vast Good A Little Truth Might Do, Spoken In Such Seasons.

Coffee Which Makes The Politician Wise, And See Through All Things With His Half-shut Eyes.

If A Man's Character Is To Be Abused There's Nobody Like A Relative To Do The Business.

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.

A Perfect Judge Will Read Each Work Of Wit With The Same Spirit That Its Author Writ: Survey The Whole, Nor Seek Slight Faults To Find Where Nature Moves, And Rapture Warms The Mind.

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.

A Perfect Woman's But A Softer Man.

All Chance, Direction, Which Thou Canst Not See

Hope Travels Through, Nor Quits Us When We Die.

Where Beams Of Imagination Play, The Memory's Soft Figures Melt Away.

Mark What Unvary'd Laws Preserve Each State, Laws Wise As Nature, And As Fixed As Fate.

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.

Not Grace, Or Zeal, Love Only Was My Call, And If I Lose Thy Love, I Lose My All.

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.

The Vulgar Boil, The Learned Roast, An Egg.

We Think Our Fathers Fools, So Wise We Grow. Our Wiser Sons, No Doubt Will Think Us So.

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.

Chaos Of Thought And Passion, All Confus'd.

Do Good By Stealth, And Blush To Find It Fame.

Tis All In Vain To Keep A Constant Pother About One Vice And Fall Into Another.

To Endeavor To Work Upon The Vulgar With Fine Sense Is Like Attempting To Hew Blocks With A Razor.

Cavil You May, But Never Criticise.

The Laughers Are A Majority.

Fine Sense And Exalted Sense Are Not Half So Useful As Common Sense. There Are Forty Men Of Wit For One Man Of Sense; And He That Will Carry Nothing About Him But Gold, Will Be Every Day At A Loss For Want Of Readier Change.

For Forms Of Government, Let Fools Contest; Whate'er Is Best Administered, Is Best.

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.

I Lisp'd In Numbers, For The Numbers Came.

And Each Blasphemer Quite Escape The Rod, Because The Insult's Not On Man, But God?

Say First, Of God Above Or Man Below; What Can We Reason But From What We Know.

Authors, Like Coins, Grow Dear As They Grow Old.

A Fly, A Grape-stone, Or A Hair Can Kill.

These Riches Are Possess'd, But Not Enjoy'd!

The Best Way To Prove The Clearness Of Our Mind, Is By Showing Its Faults; As When A Stream Discovers The Dirt At The Bottom, It Convinces Us Of The Transparency And Purity Of The Water.

Is That A Birthday? 'tis, Alas! Too Clear; 'tis But The Funeral Of The Former Year.

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.

The Villain's Censure Is Extorted Praise.

Whenever I Find A Great Deal Of Gratitude In A Poor Man, I Take It For Granted There Would Be As Much Generosity If He Were A Rich Man.

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.

Devotion's Self Shall Steal A Thought From Heaven.

Soft Is The Strain When Zephyr Gently Blows, And The Smooth Stream In Smoother Numbers Flows; But When Loud Surges Lash The Sounding Shore, The Hoarse Rough Verse Should Like The Torrent Roar. When Ajax Strives Some Rock's Vast Weight To Throw, The Line Too Labours, And The Words Move Slow: Not So When Swift Camilla Scours The Plain, Flies O'er Th' Unbending Corn, And Skims Along The Main.

Jarring Interests Of Themselves Create The According Music Of A Well-mixed State.

Where London's Column, Pointing At The Skies, Like A Tall Bully, Lifts The Head, And Lies.

He Who Tells A Lie Is Not Sensible Of How Great A Task He Undertakes; For He Must Be Forced To Invent Twenty More To Maintain That One.

There Still Remains To Mortify A Wit The Many-headed Monster Of The Pit.

Authors Are Partial To Their Wit, 'tis True, But Are Not Critics To Their Judgment, Too?

True Self-love And Social Are The Same.

To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Divine.

The Greatest Advantage I Know Of Being Thought A Wit By The World Is, That It Gives One The Greater Freedom Of Playing The Fool.

A Perfect Judge Will Read Each Word Of Wit With The Same Spirit That Its Author Writ.

Our Grandsire, Adam, Ere Of Eve Possesst, Alone, And E'en In Paradise Unblest, With Mournful Looks The Blissful Scenes Survey'd, And Wander'd In The Solitary Shade. The Maker Say, Took Pity, And Bestow'd Woman, The Last, The Best Reserv'd Of God.

Men, Some To Business, Some To Pleasure Take; But Every Woman Is At Heart A Rake.

We Ought, In Humanity, No More To Despise A Man For The Misfortunes Of The Mind Than For Those Of The Body, When They Are Such As He Cannot Help; Were This Thoroughly Considered We Should No More Laugh At A Man For Having His Brains Cracked Than For Having His Head Broke.

And Die Of Nothing But A Rage To Live.

Thus Let Me Live, Unseen, Unknown, Thus Unlamented Let Me Die, Steal From The World, And Not A Stone Tell Where I Lie.

Where Grows?--where Grows It Not? If Vain Our Toil, We Ought To Blame The Culture, Not The Soil.

Ten Censure Wrong For One Who Writes Amiss.

What Is Fame? A Fancied Life In Others' Breath.

For When Success A Lover's Toil Attends,few Ask, If Fraud Or Force Attain'd His Ends

How Glowing Guilt Exalts The Keen Delight!

What Will A Child Learn Sooner Than A Song?

When To The Permanent Is Sacrificed The Mutable, The Prize Is Thine: The Drop Returneth Whence It Came. The Open Path Leads To The Changeless Change - Non-being, The Glorious State Of Absoluteness, The Bliss Past Human Thought.

Be Thou The First True Merit To Befriend, His Praise Is Lost Who Stays Till All Commend.

"with Ev'ry Pleasing, Ev'ry Prudent Part, Say, What Can Chloe Want?"-she Wants A Heart.

Thus God And Nature Linked The Gen'ral Frame, And Bade Self-love And Social Be The Same.

Fix'd Like A Plant On His Peculiar Spot, To Draw Nutrition, Propagate And Rot.

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.

A Tree Is A Nobler Object Than A Prince In His Coronation-robes.

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.

Oh! If To Dance All Night, And Dress All Day, Charm'd The Small-pox, Or Chas'd Old Age Away; . . . . To Patch, Nay Ogle, Might Become A Saint, Nor Could It Sure Be Such A Sin To Paint.

No One Should Be Ashamed To Admit They Are Wrong, Which Is But Saying, In Other Words, That They Are Wiser Today Than They Were Yesterday.

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.

A Brain Of Feathers, And A Heart Of Lead.

Two Purposes In Human Nature Rule. Self- Love To Urge, And Reason To Restrain.

A Naked Lover Bound And Bleeding Lies!

Give Me Again My Hollow Tree A Crust Of Bread, And Liberty!

To What Base Ends, And By What Abject Ways, Are Mortals Urg'd Through Sacred Lust Of Praise!

There Is Nothing Wanting To Make All Rational And Disinterested People In The World Of One Religion, But That They Should Talk Together Every Day.

What Dire Offence From Am'rous Causes Springs, What Mighty Contests Rise From Trivial Things.

Age And Want Sit Smiling At The Gate.

They Dream In Courtship, But In Wedlock Wake.

Pretty Conceptions, Fine Metaphors, Glittering Expressions, And Something Of A Neat Cast Of Verse Are Properly The Dress, Gems, Or Loose Ornaments Of Poetry.

A Field Of Glory Is A Field For All.

Bear, Like The Turk, No Brother Near The Throne.

A Generous Friendship No Cold Medium Knows, Burns With One Love, With One Resentment Glows.

How Index-learning Turns No Student Pale, Yet Holds The Eel Of Science By The Tail!

Hope Humbly Then; With Trembling Pinions Soar; Wait The Great Teacher, Death, And God Adore; What Future Bliss He Gives Not Thee To Know, But Gives That Hope To Be Thy Blessing Now.

It Is Not So Much The Being Exempt From Faults, As Having Overcome Them, That Is An Advantage To Us.

Genius Creates, And Taste Preserves. Taste Is The Good Sense Of Genius; Without Taste, Genius Is Only Sublime Folly.

Who Are Next To Knaves? Those That Converse With Them.

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.

As The Twig Is Bent, So Grows The Tree.

Women Use Lovers As They Do Cards; They Play With Them A While, And When They Have Got All They Can By Them, Throw Them Away, Call For New Ones, And Then Perhaps Lose By The New All They Got By The Old Ones.

Chiefs Who No More In Bloody Fights Engage, But Wise Through Time, And Narrative With Age, In Summer-days Like Grasshoppers Rejoice - A Bloodless Race, That Send A Feeble Voice.

Teach Me To Feel Another's Woe, To Hide The Fault I See, That Mercy I To Others Show, That Mercy Show To Me.

Fool, 'tis In Vain From Wit To Wit To Roam: Know, Sense, Like Charity, Begins At Home.

What Nature Wants, Commodious Gold Bestows; 'tis Thus We Cut The Bread Another Sows.

In The Nice Bee, What Sense So Subtly True From Pois'nous Herbs Extracts The Healing Dew?

The Greatest Magnifying Glasses In The World Are A Man's Own Eyes When They Look Upon His Own Person.

On Wrongs Swift Vengeance Waits.

Envy Will Merit As Its Shade Pursue, But Like A Shadow, Proves The Substance True.

Sometimes Virtue Starves While Vice Is Fed.

Persons Of Genius, And Those Who Are Most Capable Of Art, Are Always Most Fond Of Nature: As Such Are Chiefly Sensible, That All Art Consists In The Imitation And Study Of Nature.

What Can Ennoble Sots, Or Slaves, Or Cowards? Alas! Not All The Blood, Of All The Howards.

Whether The Charmer Sinner It, Or Saint It, If Folly Grow Romantic, I Must Paint It.

Extremes In Nature Equal Ends Produce; In Man They Join To Some Mysterious Use.

All Other Goods By Fortune's Hand Are Given, A Wife Is The Peculiar Gift Of Heaven.

What Conscience Dictates To Be Done, Or Warns Me Not To Do; This Teach Me More Than Hell To Shun, That More Than Heav'n Pursue.

Behold The Child, By Nature's Kindly Law, Pleased With A Rattle, Tickled With A Straw; Some Livelier Plaything Gives His Youth Delight, A Little Louder, But As Empty Quite; Scarfs, Garters, Gold, Amuse His Riper Stage, And Beads And Prayer-books Are The Toys Of Age. Pleased With This Bauble Still, As That Before, Till Tired He Sleeps, And Life's Poor Play Is O'er.

True Disputants Are Like True Sportsmen: Their Whole Delight Is In The Pursuit.

Whoever Thinks A Faultless Piece To See, Thinks What Ne'er Was, Nor Is, Nor E'er Shall Be, In Every Work Regard The Writer's End, Since None Can Compass More Than They Intend; And If The Means Be Just, The Conduct True, Applause, In Spite Of Trivial Faults, Is Due.

The Finest Minds, Like The Finest Metals, Dissolve The Easiest.

Count All Th' Advantage Prosperous Vice Attains, 'tis But What Virtue Flies From And Disdains: And Grant The Bad What Happiness They Would, One They Must Want--which Is, To Pass For Good.

Only Music Has The Ability To Take You To The Edge Of Reality And Allow You To Peek In For A Moment.

Tis But A Part We See, And Not A Whole.

Vast Chain Of Being! Which From God Began, Natures Ethereal, Human, Angel, Man, Beast, Bird, Fish, Insect, What No Eye Can See, No Glass Can Reach, From Infinite To Thee, From Thee To Nothing.

By Music Minds An Equal Temper Know, Nor Swell Too High, Nor Sink Too Low. . . . . Warriors She Fires With Animated Sounds. Pours Balm Into The Bleeding Lover's Wounds.

Still When The Lust Of Tyrant Power Succeeds, Some Athens Perishes, Or Some Tully Bleeds.

Every Professional Was Once An Amateur.

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?

The Lamb Thy Riot Dooms To Bleed Today, Had He Thy Reason, Would He Skip And Play? Pleas'd To The Last He Crops The Flow'ry Food, And Licks The Hand Just Rais'd To Shed His Blood.

Be Niggards Of Advice On No Pretense; For The Worst Avarice Is That Of Sense.

Chaste To Her Husband, Frank To All Beside, A Teeming Mistress, But A Barren Bride.

Whate'er The Passion, Knowledge, Fame, Or Pelf, Not One Will Change His Neighbor With Himself.

Such As Are Still Observing Upon Others Are Like Those Who Are Always Abroad At Other Men's Houses, Reforming Everything There While Their Own Runs To Ruin.

Eye Nature's Walks, Shoot Folly As It Flies, And Catch The Manners Living As They Rise; Laugh Where We Must, Be Candid Where We Can, But Vindicate The Ways Of God To Man.

What Bosom Beast Not In His Country's Cause?

Self-love, The Spring Of Motion, Acts The Soul; Reason's Comparing Balance Rules The Whole. Man, But For That No Action Could Attend, And, But For This, Were Active To No End: Fix'd Like A Plant On His Peculiar Spot, To Draw Nutrition, Propagate, And Rot; Or, Meteor-like, Flame Lawless Thro' The Void, Destroying Others, By Himself Destroy'd.

And Bear About The Mockery Of Woe To Midnight Dances And The Public Show.

Those Oft Are Stratagems Which Errors Seem Nor Is It Homer Nods, But We That Dream.

Oft In Dreams Invention We Bestow To Change A Flounce Or Add A Furbelow.

All Nature Is But Art, Unknown To Thee All Chance, Direction, Which Thou Canst Not See; All Discord, Harmony Not Understood; All Partial Evil, Universal Good.

Fondly We Think We Honor Merit Then, When We But Praise Ourselves In Other Men.

At Ev'ry Word A Reputation Dies.

As With Narrow-necked Bottles; The Less They Have In Them, The More Noise They Make In Pouring Out.

Some Judge Of Authors' Names, Not Works, And Then Nor Praise Nor Blame The Writings, But The Men.

Not Half So Swift The Trembling Doves Can Fly, When The Fierce Eagle Cleaves The Liquid Sky; Not Half So Swiftly The Fierce Eagle Moves, When Thro' The Clouds He Drives The Trembling Doves.

The Pure And Noble, The Graceful And Dignified, Simplicity Of Language Is Nowhere In Such Perfection As In The Scriptures And Homer. The Whole Book Of Job, With Regard Both To Sublimity Of Thought And Morality, Exceeds, Beyond All Comparison, The Most Noble Parts Of Homer.

The Lot Of Man - To Suffer And To Die.

Judge Not Of Actions By Their Mere Effect; Dive To The Center, And The Cause Detect. Great Deeds From Meanest Springs May Take Their Course, And Smallest Virtues From A Mighty Source.

Choose A Firm Cloud Before It Fall, And In It Catch, Ere She Change, The Cynthia Of This Minute.

To Be Angry Is To Revenge The Faults Of Others On Ourselves.

Genius Creates, And Taste Preserves.

Expression Is The Dress Of Thought.

What Some Call Health, If Purchased By Perpetual Anxiety About Diet, Isn't Much Better Than Tedious Disease.

When Rumours Increase, And When There Is An Abundance Of Noise And Clamour, Believe The Second Report.

Alas! The Small Discredit Of A Bribe Scarce Hurts The Lawyer, But Undoes The Scribe.

Good God! How Often Are We To Die Before We Go Quite Off This Stage? In Every Friend We Lose A Part Of Ourselves, And The Best Part.

To Pardon Those Absurdities In Ourselves Which We Cannot Suffer In Others Is Neither Better Nor Worse Than To Be More Willing To Be Fools Ourselves Than To Have Others So.

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.

Finding Yourself

A Work Of Art That Contains Theories Is Like An Object On Which The Price Tag Has Been Left.

An Excuse Is Worse And More Terrible Than A Lie; For An Excuse Is A Lie Guarded.

The Sound Must Seem An Echo To The Sense.

Praise Is Like Ambergrease: A Little Whiff Of It, And By Snatches, Is Very Agreeable; But When A Man Holds A Whole Lump Of It To Your Nose, It Is A Stink, And Strikes You Down.

O Peace! How Many Wars Were Waged In Thy Name.

Envy, To Which Th' Ignoble Mind's A Slave, Is Emulation In The Learn'd Or Brave.

Never Elated When Someone's Oppressed, Never Dejected When Another One's Blessed.

Reason's Whole Pleasure, All The Joys Of Sense, Lie In Three Words,-health, Peace, And Competence.

A Family Is But Too Often A Commonwealth Of Malignants.

Two Women Seldom Grow Intimate But At The Expense Of A Third Person; They Make Friendships As Kings Of Old Made Leagues, Who Sacrificed Some Poor Animal Betwixt Them, And Commenced Strict Allies; So The Ladies, After They Have Pulled Some Character To Pieces, Are From Henceforth Inviolable Friends.

The Dances Ended, All The Fairy Train For Pinks And Daisies Search'd The Flow'ry Plain.

And Seem To Walk On Wings, And Tread In Air.

There Are Some Solitary Wretches Who Seem To Have Left The Rest Of Mankind, Only, As Eve Left Adam, To Meet The Devil In Private.

Like Bubbles On The Sea Of Matter Borne, They Rise, They Break, And To That Sea Return.

Superstition Is The Spleen Of The Soul.

A Good-natured Man Has The Whole World To Be Happy Out Of.

Sure Of Their Qualities And Demanding Praise, More Go To Ruined Fortunes Than Are Raised.

Wholesome Solitude, The Nurse Of Sense!

Who Builds A Church To God And Not To Fame, Will Never Mark The Marble With His Name.

Speed The Soft Intercourse From Soul To Soul, And Waft A Sigh From Indus To The Pole.

He Best Can Paint Them Who Shall Feel Them Most.

Mankind Is Unamendable.

Every Woman Is At Heart A Rake.

Interspersed In Lawn And Opening Glades, Thin Trees Arise That Shun Each Others' Shades.

Ye Gods, Annihilate But Space And Time, And Make Two Lovers Happy.

Is Pride, The Never-failing Vice Of Fools.

Behold The Child, By Nature's Kindly Law Pleased With A Rattle, Tickled With A Straw.

No Woman Ever Hates A Man For Being In Love With Her, But Many A Woman Hate A Man For Being A Friend To Her.

Be Not The First By Whom The New Are Tried, Nor Yet The Last To Lay The Old Aside.

Offend Her, And She Knows Not To Forgive; Oblige Her, And She'll Hate You While You Live.

We May See The Small Value God Has For Riches, By The People He Gives Them To.

Nor In The Critic Let The Man Be Lost.

The World Forgetting, By The World Forgot. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind! Each Pray'r Accepted, And Each Wish Resign'd

How Vast A Memory Has Love!

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.

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!

The Most Positive Men Are The Most Credulous.

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?

And Empty Heads Console With Empty Sound.

Content If Hence Th' Unlearn'd Their Wants May View, The Learn'd Reflect On What Before They Knew.

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.

Heav'n First Taught Letters For Some Wretch's Aid, Some Banish'd Lover, Or Some Captive Maid.

Pleasure, Or Wrong Or Rightly Understood, Our Greatest Evil, Or Our Greatest Good.

Wit Is The Lowest Form Of Humor.

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