Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Enemy
Tool
May
Enemies
Scarecrow
Wells
Secure
Straw
Well
King
Frighten
Enough
Tools
Straws
Thing
Property
Protects
Kings
Corn
Protect
Serves

More quotes by Alexander Pope

Image
All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye.
Alexander Pope
Image
Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.
Alexander Pope
Image
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.
Alexander Pope
Image
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.
Alexander Pope
Image
Of all affliction taught a lover yet, 'Tis true the hardest science to forget.
Alexander Pope
Image
Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.
Alexander Pope
Image
Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands in unskillful, the most mischievous.
Alexander Pope
Image
A gen'rous heart repairs a sland'rous tongue.
Alexander Pope
Image
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie for an excuse is a lie guarded.
Alexander Pope
Image
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
Alexander Pope
Image
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.
Alexander Pope
Image
And make each day a critic on the last.
Alexander Pope
Image
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.
Alexander Pope
Image
All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. [and therefore the solution is to fix the jaundiced eye.]
Alexander Pope
Image
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools and pageant of a day So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
Alexander Pope
Image
Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.
Alexander Pope
Image
The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.
Alexander Pope
Image
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.
Alexander Pope
Image
Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.
Alexander Pope
Image
In men, we various ruling passions find In women, two almost divide the kind Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
Alexander Pope