Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744)
Considered one of the greatest English poets of the eighteenth century.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To right the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast,
When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their last.
A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.
Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
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.
For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.
They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.
What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume Thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge Thy foe.
I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.
Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.