"We poets are (upon a poet's word) Of all mankind the creatures most absurd; The season when to come, and when to go, To sing, or cease to sing, we never know."

"The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg."

"Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spoke."

"Learn to live well, or fairly make your Will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your fill: Walk sober off; before a sprightlier Age Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please."

"The worst of madmen is a saint run mad."

"Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread, and liberty."

"Laugh then at any but at fools or foes; These you but anger, and you mend not those. Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore, So much the better, you may laugh the more."

"Never gallop Pegasus to death."

"Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place."

"What will a child learn sooner than a song?"

"But touch me, and no minister so sore; Whoe'er offends at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burden of some merry song."

"Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky."

"Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star."

"Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way."

"Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe."

"Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust."

"There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul."

"Were there one whose fires True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires, Blessed with each talent, and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne."

"This long disease, my life."

"View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause."

"Obliged by hunger and request of friends."

"Friend to my life, which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song."

"Fired that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I 'll print it, And shame the fools.""

"E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me."

"Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land."

"Destroy his fib, or sophistry — in vain! The creature's at his dirty work again."

"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came."

"Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there."

"Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad."

""On wings of winds came flying all abroad"."

"Oh let me live my own, and die so too (To live and die is all I have to do)! Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please."

"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 gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys."

"That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song."

"Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart."

"Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day."

"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet."

"Is there a parson much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross?"

"A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age."

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

"All, all look up with reverential awe At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law."

"When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one."

"No creature smarts so little as a fool."