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Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n.

Alexander Pope

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Alexander Pope
Age: 56 †
Born: 1688
Born: May 21
Died: 1744
Died: May 30
Literary Historian
Poet
Translator
the City
Pope the Poet
Alexander I Pope
Alexander
I Pope
Men
Comprehend
Awe
Plain
Mite
Vision
Inspect
Seeing
Heav
Eye
Optics
Use
Microscopic
Reason
Finer

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Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven.
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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.
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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.
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One science only will one genius fit so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
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Passions are the gales of life.
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Where's the man who counsel can bestow, still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know.
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And you, my Critics! in the chequer'd shade, Admire new light thro' holes yourselves have made.
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The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.
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Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands in unskillful, the most mischievous.
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Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation's aid, But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
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Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself.
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Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate and rot.
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From the moment one sets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully, as a king's favorite or a king.
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Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
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Horses (thou say'st) and asses men may try, And ring suspected vessels ere they buy But wives, a random choice, untried they take They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away, And all the woman glares in open day.
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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.
Alexander Pope
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Of little use, the man you may suppose, Who says in verse what others say in prose Yet let me show a poet's of some weight, And (though no soldier) useful to the state, What will a child learn sooner than a song? What better teach a foreigner the tongue? What's long or short, each accent where to place And speak in public with some sort of grace?
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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.
Alexander Pope
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Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
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As with narrow-necked bottles the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out.
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