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What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

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
Style
Lines
Lord
Woeful
Happiness
Hackney
Happy
Refines
Stuff
Brightens
Would
Starved
Wit

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Monuments, like men, submit to fate.
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Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?
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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.
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It is sure the hardest science to forget!
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Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, Stays till we call, and then not often near.
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Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find two of a face as soon as of a mind.
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To the Elysian shades dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades.
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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.
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The grave unites where e'en the great find rest, And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed!
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Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer once we know them.
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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.
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What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.
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Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
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Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.
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Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.
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Rogues in rags are kept in countenance by rogues in ruffles.
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Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.
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In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.
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Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserv'd my sheep.
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Never find fault with the absent.
Alexander Pope