"A young, squab, short gentleman, whose outward form, though it should be that of downright monkey, would not differ so much from human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding. ... As there is no creature in nature so venomous, there is nothing so stupid and so impotent as a hunch-back'd toad. ... This little author may extol the ancients as much and as long as he pleases, but he has reason to thank the good gods that he was born a modern. For had he been born of Grecian parents, and his father by consequence had by law the absolute disposal of him, his life had been no longer than that of one of his poems,—the life of half a day."

"The Iliad and the Odyssey, in his hands, have no more the air of antiquity than if he had himself invented them."

"This beautiful passage [The Rape of the Lock, Canto 5, lines 25-32], from the most beautiful of poets, which ought to be fastened in large print upon every lady's dressing table, the American women, of all ranks, seem to have by heart."

"I look upon a proper appreciation of Pope as a touchstone of taste."

"The most beautiful of poets."

"We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as the splendid high-priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable... Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are classics of our prose."

"What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease."

"The sick in body call for aid: the sick In mind are covetous of more disease; And when at worst, they dream themselves quite well. To know ourselves diseased, is half our cure."

"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious."

"Never find fault with the absent."

"Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain. Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! Each stamps its image as the other flies!"

"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."

"Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly."

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

"A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature."

"True politeness consists in the being easy one-self, and making every body about one as easy as we can."

"This is the Jew That Shakespeare drew."

"Passions...are the gales of life..."

"Teach me to feel another's woe, To right the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me."

"If I am right, Thy grace import Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way!"

"Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge Thy foe."

"And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will."

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

"Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!"

"Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

"Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few."

"To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves."

"The most positive men are the most credulous..."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings."

"It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out."

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

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

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

"How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot; A heap of dust alone remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!"

"And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances and the public show."

"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."

"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."

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

"Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods."

"Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die?"

"What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?"

"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."

"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."

"I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken."