Alexander Pope: Likeness

Alexander Pope was eighteenth century English poet. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.

Alexander Pope: 316 quotes23 likes

“Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.”

Canto II, line 13.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”

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.

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

Source: An Essay on Criticism

“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

“There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell:
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you;
'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.”

Alexander Pope

Reported in The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 832: "Verbatim from Boileau", written c. 1740, published 1741.. Compare: "Tenez voilà", dit-elle, "à chacun une écaille, Des sottises d'autrui nous vivons au Palais; Messieurs, l'huître étoit bonne. Adieu. Vivez en paix", Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux, Epître II. (à M. l'Abbé des Roches).

“Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But as the world, harmoniously confus'd,
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.”

Alexander Pope book Windsor Forest

Source: Windsor Forest (1713), Line 13.

“I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

“Each finding like a friend
Something to blame, and something to commend.”

Alexander Pope

"Epistle to Mr. Jervas" (1717), lines 21–22.

“To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”

Alexander Pope

Une oeuvre où il y a des théories est comme un objet sur lequel on laisse la marque du prix. <br class="br">Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, part VII: Time Regained, chapter III, "An Afternoon Party at the House of the Princesse de Guermantes" ( French version http://web.archive.org/web/20010708070436/http://gallica.bnf.fr/proust/TempsRetrouve.htm and English translation http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96t/chapter3.html). <br class="br">Misattributed

“Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be Scholars, and yet be angry to find us so.”

Alexander Pope

Preface.
The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717)

“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.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

“Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.”

Alexander Pope

"Umbra", first published in Miscellanies (1727).

“Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again,
Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised,
But, as the world, harmoniously confused:
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.”

Alexander Pope book Windsor Forest

Source: Windsor Forest (1713), Line 11.

“Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.”

Alexander Pope

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

“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)

“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