Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
English poet & satirist (1688 - 1744)
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die; steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,
But, like the shadow, proves the substance true.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.