Some who grow dull religious straight commenceAnd gain in morals what they lose in sense.

Remembrance and reflection how allied!What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods,...

Let Sporus tremble — “What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk?Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?”Yet let me flap this Bug with...

Men, some to business take, some to pleasure take; but every woman is at heart a rake

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,With too much spirit to be e’er at ease,With too much quickness ever to be taught,With too much thinking to have common thought:You purchase pain with all that...

Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav’n bestows on thee.

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to seeMen not afraid of God afraid of me.

For when success a lover’s toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

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.

The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man’s error and misery.

Next o’er his books his eyes began to roll,In pleasing memory of all he stole.

Order is heaven’s first law.

Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,Make use of ev’ry friend—and ev’ry foe.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too...

All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety!

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d

If I am right, Thy grace impartStill in the right to stay;If I am wrong, O, teach my heartTo find that better way!

Where beams of imagination play,The memory’s soft figures melt away.

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

Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob,...

Know thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

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

If it be the chief point of friendship to comply with a friend’s notions and inclinations he possesses this is an eminent degree; he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk, which...

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart

There is no study that is not capable of delighting us, after a little application to it.

Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,Why form’d so weak, so little, and so blind?First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,Why form’d no weaker, blinder, and no less!Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks...

What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things,…

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

Happy the man, whose wish and careA few paternal acres bound,Content to breathe his native airIn his own ground.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’dWhat oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives us back the image of our mind.As shades more sweetly recommend the...

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;And here, ev’n then, shall my cold dust remain

To err is human, to forgive, divine.

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,Are what ten thousand envy and adore:All, all look up, with reverential Awe,At crimes that ‘scape, or triumph o’er the Law:While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry-`’Nothing...

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives them to.”[Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727]

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

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

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

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

For forms of Government let fools contest. Whate’er is best administered is best.

Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.