Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer. - (Pope, Alexander - Absence)

Fools admire, but men of sense approve. - (Pope, Alexander - Admiration)

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example. - (Pope, Alexander - Age and Aging)

Men would be angels, angels would be gods. - (Pope, Alexander - Ambition)

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. - (Pope, Alexander - America)

True disputants are like true sportsman: their whole delight is in the pursuit. - (Pope, Alexander - Argument)

When much dispute has past, we find our tenets just the same as last. - (Pope, Alexander - Argument)

Sure of their qualities and demanding praise, more go to ruined fortunes than are raised. - (Pope, Alexander - Arrogance)

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. - (Pope, Alexander - Arts and Artists)

Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed. - (Pope, Alexander - Attitude)

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join. - (Pope, Alexander - Bachelor)

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. - (Pope, Alexander - Beauty)

Be not the first by which a new thing is tried, or the last to lay the old aside. - (Pope, Alexander - Change)

Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored; dies before thy uncreating word: thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; and universal darkness buries all. - (Pope, Alexander - Chaos)

Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies. - (Pope, Alexander - Character)

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot. - (Pope, Alexander - Chastity)

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. - (Pope, Alexander - Children)

I am his Highness dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? - (Pope, Alexander - Class)

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can. - (Pope, Alexander - Courtesy)

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! - (Pope, Alexander - Credit)

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod. - (Pope, Alexander - Critics and Criticism)

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity. - (Pope, Alexander - Curiosity)

Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. - (Pope, Alexander - Death and Dying)

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor. - (Pope, Alexander - Devil)

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude. - (Pope, Alexander - Disappointments)

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. - (Pope, Alexander - Dreams)

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. - (Pope, Alexander - Education)

Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel? - (Pope, Alexander - Exaggeration)

An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded. - (Pope, Alexander - Excuses)

Why has not man a microscopic eye? For the plain reason man is not a fly. - (Pope, Alexander - Eyes)

I was not born for courts and great affairs, but I pay my debts, believe and say my prayers. - (Pope, Alexander - Faith)

What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death. - (Pope, Alexander - Fame)

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad. - (Pope, Alexander - Fanatics and Fanaticism)

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so. - (Pope, Alexander - Fathers and Sons)

Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. - (Pope, Alexander - Fools and Foolishness)

To err is human, to forgive is divine. - (Pope, Alexander - Forgiveness)

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence? - (Pope, Alexander - Forgiveness)

Many people are capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing. - (Pope, Alexander - Generosity)

At every word a reputation dies. - (Pope, Alexander - Gossip)

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too. - (Pope, Alexander - Gossip)

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best. - (Pope, Alexander - Government)

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground. - (Pope, Alexander - Happiness)

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below. - (Pope, Alexander - Happiness)

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves. - (Pope, Alexander - Hatred)

Health consists with temperance alone. - (Pope, Alexander - Health)

An honest man's the noblest work of God. - (Pope, Alexander - Honesty)

Act well your part; there all honor lies. - (Pope, Alexander - Honor)

If, presume not to 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. - (Pope, Alexander - Humankind)

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. - (Pope, Alexander - Humility)

Fix'd like a plan on his peculiar spot, to draw nutrition, propagate, and rot. - (Pope, Alexander - Inertia)

Die and endow a college or a cat. - (Pope, Alexander - Inheritance)

But thousands die without or this or that, die, and endow a college, or a cat: To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, Tenrich a bastard, or a son they hate. - (Pope, Alexander - Inheritance)

For virtue's self may too much zeal be had; the worst of madmen is a saint run mad. - (Pope, Alexander - Insanity)

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there's no body at home. - (Pope, Alexander - Inspiration)

It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own. - (Pope, Alexander - Judgment and Judges)

Curse on all laws, but those that love has made. - (Pope, Alexander - Law and Lawyers)

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain; And drinking largely sobers us again. - (Pope, Alexander - Learning)

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. - (Pope, Alexander - Loyalty)

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. - (Pope, Alexander - Marriage)

Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought. - (Pope, Alexander - Memory)

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! - (Pope, Alexander - Memory)

Men dream of courtship, but in wedlock wake. - (Pope, Alexander - Men)

Teach me to feel another's woe. To hide the fault I see: That the mercy I show to others; that mercy also show to me. - (Pope, Alexander - Mercy)

Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul. - (Pope, Alexander - Merit)

A man should never be ashamed to own that he is wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. - (Pope, Alexander - Mistakes)

Two purposes in human nature rule. Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain. - (Pope, Alexander - Motivation)

All nature is but art unknown to thee. - (Pope, Alexander - Nature)

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. - (Pope, Alexander - Observation)

An obstinate person does not hold opinions; they hold them. - (Pope, Alexander - Opinions)

Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king. - (Pope, Alexander - Order)

The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still. - (Pope, Alexander - Passion)

Passions are the gales of life. - (Pope, Alexander - Passion)

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after. - (Pope, Alexander - Passion)

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few. - (Pope, Alexander - Politicians and Politics)

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men. - (Pope, Alexander - Praise)

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise. - (Pope, Alexander - Praise)

All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye. - (Pope, Alexander - Prejudice)

At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense. - (Pope, Alexander - Pride)

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel. - (Pope, Alexander - Pride)

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance. - (Pope, Alexander - Progress)

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale. - (Pope, Alexander - Reason)

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; you played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill: walk sober off; before a sprightlier age comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage: leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please. - (Pope, Alexander - Retirement)

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit. - (Pope, Alexander - Science and Scientists)

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe. - (Pope, Alexander - Self-knowledge)

There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed. - (Pope, Alexander - Sex)

By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned; By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned. - (Pope, Alexander - Strangers)

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine. - (Pope, Alexander - Trials)

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause. - (Pope, Alexander - Tyranny)

On wrongs swift vengeance waits. - (Pope, Alexander - Vengeance)

Virtuous and vicious everyone must be; few in extremes, but all in degree. - (Pope, Alexander - Virtue)

To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor. - (Pope, Alexander - Vulgarity)

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor. - (Pope, Alexander - Wealth)

True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but never so well expressed. - (Pope, Alexander - Wit)

Most women have no characters at all. - (Pope, Alexander - Women)

Most authors steal their works, or buy. - (Pope, Alexander - Writers and Writing)

Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss. - (Pope, Alexander - Writers and Writing)

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own? - (Pope, Alexander - Writers and Writing)

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence. The sound must seem an echo to the sense. - (Pope, Alexander - Writers and Writing)