"And swear No where Lives a woman true and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet, Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three."

"Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind."

"On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goe; And what the hills suddenness resists, winne so; Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight, Thy Soule rest, for none can worke in that night."

"Though Truth and Falsehood be Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is."

"Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child."

"Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? in every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part."

"So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died."

"Know, sense, like charity, begins at home."

"Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long Absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: Absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer."

""Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth Beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth."

"Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear."

"Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue."

"Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the ver sin itself: the thrist of gain was their crime, that thrist continued became their punishment and ruin. As for the few who have the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had (among whom is your humble servantl, I would have them sensible of their felicity, and convinced of the truth of old Hesiod's maxim, who, after half his estate was swallowed by the Directors of those days, resolv'd, that half to be more than the whole."

"Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died."

"Each finding like a friend Something to blame, and something to commend."

"I think it was a generous thought, and one that fow'd from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world."

"I am growing fit, I hope, for a better world, of which light of the sun is but a shadow: for I doubt not but God's works here, are what comes nearest to his works there; and that a true relish of the beauties of nature is the most easy preparation and gentlest transition to an enjoyment of those of heaven; as on the contrary a true town life of hurry, confusion, noise, slander, and dissension, is a fort of apprenticeship to hell and its furies... The separation of my soul and body is what I could think of with less pain; for I sm very sure he that made it will take care of it, and in whatever state he pleases it shall be, that state must be right; but I cannot think without tears of beingseparated from my friends, when their condition is so douubtful, that they may want even such assistance as mine"

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."

"Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!"

"Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!"

"Well, if our author in the wife offends He has a husband that will make amends; He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving, And sure such kind good creatures may be living."

"The stoic husband was the glorious thing. The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true, And lov'd his country."

"I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your own, heartily wishing the good, that is the quiet of my country, and hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few."

"Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring victims, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there. It gives one the image of a giant's den in a romance, bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs."

"How vast a memory has Love!"

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

"I am his Highness' Dog at Kew; Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?"

"Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends."

"Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise."

"The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul."

"They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake."

"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."

"'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion move."

"Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground."

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

"As far as Pope goes, he succeeds; but his Homer is not Homer, but Pope."

"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope."

"Of all his works he was most proud of his garden."

"He is in my opinion the most elegant, the most correct poet; and at the same time the most harmonious...that England ever gave birth to."

"In Pope, I cannot read a line, But with a sigh, I wish it mine: When he can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six: It gives me such a jealous fit, I cry, Pox take him, and his wit."

"The verses, when they were written, resemble nothing so much as spoonfuls of boiling oil, ladled out by a fiendish monkey at an upstairs window upon such passers-by whom the wretch had a grudge against."

"I have entered into these particulars with respect to the Essay on Man, partly with a view of illustrating the distinction already hinted at between the two different forms in which the system of optimism has been proposed, and partly to have an opportunity of directing the attention of my readers to the noblest specimen of philosophical poetry which our language affords; and which, with the exception of a very few passages, contains a valuable summary of all that human reason has been able hitherto to advance in justification of the moral government of God."

"Pope has done this so well that you cannot do it better; and if you mean this as a burlesque, you had better suppress it, for you cannot parody Pope unless you can write better verse than Pope—and you can't."