"What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!"

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

"Yet not let each gay turn thy rapture move; For fools admire, but men of sense approve."

"At ev'ry Trifle scorn to take Offence, That always shows Great Pride, or Little Sense."

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense; The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main."

"Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

"As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

"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."

"Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearned, and make the learned smile."

"Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found."

"True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be."

"'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all."

"Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!"

"A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."

"Trust not your self; but your Defects to know, Make use of ev'ry Friend — and ev'ry Foe."

"Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules, — Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools."

"A prudent Chief not always must display His Pow'rs in equal Ranks, and fair Array, But with th' Occasion and the Place comply, Conceal his Force, nay seem sometimes to Fly. Those oft are Stratagems which Errors seem, Nor is it Homer Nods, but We that Dream."

"Some Figures monstrous and mis-shap'd appear, Consider'd singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportion'd to their Light, or Place, Due Distance reconciles to Form and Grace."

"From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art."

"Wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife."

"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."

"Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies."

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung."

"Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name."

"Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays."

"Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross."

"Extremes in Nature equal good produce; Extremes in man concur to general use."

"The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still."

"But thousands die, without this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat."

"P. What riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, fine clothes, and fire."

"Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly."

"Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?"

"And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still."

"And mistress of herself though china fall."

"She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys."

"Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!"

"See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards."

"Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake."

"In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway."

"Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies forever."

""With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?" — She wants a heart."

"Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, Childless with all her children, wants an heir; To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders heaven-directed to the poor."

"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 joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live."

"Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride."

"Fine by defect, and delicately weak."

"Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute."

"Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it."

"Nothing so true as what you once let fall, "Most women have no characters at all"."