Thursday 21 May 2015

21st May: Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is the third most quoted English writer, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. He was born on this date in 1688.



  1. No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.
  2. Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
  3. What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
  4. Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
  5. A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
  6. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
  7. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
  8. Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
  9. The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
  10. But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

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