Alexander Pope

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Alexander Pope - (1712?)
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

An honest man is the noblest work of God.
Alexander Pope - Essay on Man
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,
But, like the shadow, proves the substance true.
Alexander Pope - "Ode to Solitude"
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 - An Essay on Criticism
To err is human, to forgive divine.

He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism, 1711
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?
Alexander Pope - Letter to Gay, October 6, 1727
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.

It is with our judgments as with our watches; no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Alexander Pope - An essay on Criticism
A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.

The general cry is against ingratitude, but the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity; none but direct villains are capable of willful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he hath done more that another deserves, while the other thinks he hath received less than he deserves.

- Alexander Pope