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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.

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
Playing
Greatest
Greater
Freedom
Thought
Wit
Giving
Advantage
World
Fool
Gives

More quotes by Alexander Pope

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Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.
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Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
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He knows to live who keeps the middle state, and neither leans on this side nor on that.
Alexander Pope
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Here thou, great Anna! Whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.
Alexander Pope
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One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Alexander Pope
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Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
Alexander Pope
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Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Alexander Pope
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Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.
Alexander Pope
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Oh! be thou blest with all that Heaven can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure-and a friend.
Alexander Pope
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True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.
Alexander Pope
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The approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade.
Alexander Pope
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And soften'd sounds along the waters die: Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play.
Alexander Pope
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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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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.
Alexander Pope
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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.
Alexander Pope
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Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare And beauty draws us with a single hair.
Alexander Pope
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Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.
Alexander Pope
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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.
Alexander Pope
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And not a vanity is given in vain.
Alexander Pope
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Be silent always when you doubt your sense.
Alexander Pope