Alexander Pope: Trending quotes (page 8)

“Well, if our author in the wife offends
He has a husband that will make amends;
He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,
And sure such kind good creatures may be living.”

Alexander Pope

Epilogue to Rowe's Jane Shore (1714).

Forgiveness , Drawing

“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto II, line 7.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

Kiss

“Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

Men , Youth , Fools , Time

“The famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.—When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord, "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house." Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.—In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time of much the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.—Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure.—I am sure you can give it a little turn."—I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.—Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do, (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."—I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed[; ] read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better."”

Alexander Pope

As quoted in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [published from the original papers; with notes, and a life of the author, by Samuel Weller Singer]; "Spence's Anecdotes", Section IV. pp. 134–136.
Attributed

Pleasure , Books , Hope , Way

“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”

Alexander Pope

Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 51.

“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.”

Alexander Pope

"Ode on Solitude", st. 5 (c. 1700).

Lie , World

“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”

Alexander Pope Pastorals

Autumn, line 36.
Pastorals (1709)

“On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.”

Alexander Pope

Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 37.

Waiting

“For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.”

Alexander Pope

Imitation of Martial, reported in Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence (1737), Vol. V, p. 232; The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 117. Compare: "Ampliat ætatis spatium sibi vir bonus; hoc est Vivere bis vita posse priore frui" (Translated: "The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice"), Martial, X, 237.; "Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well, runs twice his race", Abraham Cowley, Discourse XI, Of Myself, stanza xi.

Past

“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,
Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”

Alexander Pope

"A Farewell to London" (1715), st. 12.

Peace , Fools , Sleep

“So unaffected, so compos'd a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd;
Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd;
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.”

Alexander Pope

"Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet" (1730).

Strong

“Thou Great First Cause, least understood
Who all my sense confined
To know but this, that Thou art good
And that myself am blind.”

Alexander Pope

Stanza 2
Source: The Universal Prayer (1738)

Sense , Art

“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.”

Alexander Pope Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

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

Heart , Soul , Fools

“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.”

Alexander Pope

Preface
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

Forgiveness , Making love

“Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!”

Alexander Pope

Stanza 1
Source: The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)

Pain , Hope , Flying

“I have nothing to say for rhyme, but that I doubt whether a poem can support itself without it, in our language; unless it be stiffened with such strange words, as are likely to destroy our language itself.”

Alexander Pope

Remark (1738?) quoted in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [published from the original papers; with notes, and a life of the author, by Samuel Weller Singer]; "Spence's Anecdotes", Section IV. 1737...39. p. 200

Support

“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto V, line 33
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

Soul , Beauty

“For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

Whore , Sense , Making love , Fools