Tis hard to say if better want of skill, appear in speaking or in judging ill.
Alexander Pope Quotes
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man. Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the skeptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; […]
There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
Honor and shame from no condition rise; act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Party is the madness of many, for the gains of a few.
Such were the notes thy once loved poet sung, Till death untimely stopped his tuneful tongue. (to Robert, Earl of Oxford)
Is there a parson much bemused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk foredoomed his father’s soul to cross, Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease, It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning; And he whose fustian’s so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
But touch me, and no minister so sore; Whoever 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.
