Quotes
Quotes - Pope
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold-- For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.
Your scene precariously subsists too long, On French translation and Italian song. Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage; Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
For fools admire, but me of sense approve.
Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense.
Where grows?--where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.
Our rural ancestors with little blest, Patient of labour when the end was rest, Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand.
The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest.
Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind.
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can fear reproof who merit praise.
What beck'ning ghost along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause.
Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?
Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthened every shade.
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.
Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
