Quote

Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent as more suitable A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd.

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
Still
Dress
Pompous
Like
Dresses
Vile
Express
Conceit
Expression
Suitable
Style
Clown
Words
Purple
Thought
Appears
Stills
Decent
Regal

More quotes by Alexander Pope

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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.
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Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
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Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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?
Alexander Pope
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As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
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And empty heads console with empty sound.
Alexander Pope
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To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each Seene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.
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A king may be a tool, a thing of straw but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.
Alexander Pope
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Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.
Alexander Pope
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Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.
Alexander Pope
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Monuments, like men, submit to fate.
Alexander Pope
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Where's the man who counsel can bestow, still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know.
Alexander Pope
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Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best.
Alexander Pope
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The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.
Alexander Pope
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I begin where most people end, with a full conviction of the emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory nature of all human pleasures.
Alexander Pope
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For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends
Alexander Pope
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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.
Alexander Pope