A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest.
— Alexander Pope
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.
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
And die of nothing but a rage to live.
The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?
There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Wit is the lowest form of humor.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in the night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light!
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
Woman's at best a contradiction still.
No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.
'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.
The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.
Those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
On wrongs swift vengeance waits.
Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
Health consists with temperance alone.
Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
At ev'ry word a reputation dies.
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.
Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.
