Preface.
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)
Context: I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.
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“Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.”
Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 45. Compare Pope's The Odyssey of Homer, Book XVIII, line 269.
Context: 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.
“Act well your part; there all the honour lies.”
Alexander Pope An Essay on Man
Source: An Essay on Man
“Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed”
Letter, written in collaboration with John Gay, to William Fortescue (23 September 1725).
A similar remark was made in a letter to John Gay (16 October 1727): "I have many years magnify'd in my own mind, and repeated to you a ninth Beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
Variant: Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Context: "Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth Beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth.
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
Source: Miscellanies in Verse and Prose. by Alexander Pope, Esq; And Dean Swift. in One Volume. Viz. the Strange and Deplorable Frensy of Mr. John Dennis. ... Epitaph on Francis Ch-Is. Soldier and Scholar. with Several More Epigrams, Epitaphs, and Poems.
“Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.”
Alexander Pope An Essay on Man
Source: An Essay on Man
“Our judgments, like our watches, none
go just alike, yet each believes his own”
Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism
Source: An Essay on Criticism
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism
Source: An Essay on Criticism (1711)
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!"”
and all was light.
Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton.
The Universal Prayer (1738)
Source: Moral Essays
“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.”
Letter to Henry Cromwell (19 October 1709).
Source: Letters of the Late Alexander Pope, Esq. to a Lady. Never Before Published