Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.
— Alexander Pope
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.
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!
Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.
Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Order is heaven's first law.
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.
Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.
'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.
Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.
All nature is but art unknown to thee.
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.
True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.
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.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
The most positive men are the most credulous.
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?
One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
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.
Passions are the gales of life.
Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.
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.
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.
Never find fault with the absent.
A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.
