An Essay On Criticism Quotes

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Our judgments, like our watches, none
go just alike, yet each believes his own”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Music resembles poetry, in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be,
In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the means be just, the conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too?”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“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.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Averse alike to flatter, or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Then most our trouble still when most admired,
And still the more we give, the more required;
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound!
The pow'r of music all our hearts allow,
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th'eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th'increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev’ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th’ unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate’er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“As some to church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Some valuing those of their own side or mind,
Still make themselves the measure of mankind;
Fondly we think we honour merit then,
When we but praise ourselves in other men.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.
Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let 'em live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When patriarch wits surviv'd a thousand years:
Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast;
Our sons their fathers' failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Be silent always when you doubt your sense;
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence:
Some positive, persisting fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you, with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense!
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day;
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit
With the same spirit that its author writ;
Survey the WHOLE, nor seek slight faults to find
Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind;
.... In wit, as nature, what effects our hearts
Is not th'exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Errare è umano, perdonare divino.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

“Nature to all things fixed the limits fit
And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the ocean gains.
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away
One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts
Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before,
By vain ambition still to make them more
Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.”
― Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism