Alexander Pope

English poet & satirist (1688 - 1744)

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.

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.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

An honest man is the noblest work of God.

And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

It is with our judgments as with our watches; no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

The general cry is against ingratitude, but the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity; none but direct villains are capable of willful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he hath done more that another deserves, while the other thinks he hath received less than he deserves.