Александр Поуп цитаты

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„Немного знаний - опасная вещь. Так много.“

„Глупцы спешат попасть туда, куда ангелы бояться ступить.“

„Силу уму придают упражнения, а не покой.“

„Молчание есть лоск дураков и хитрость мудреца.“

„В каждом человеке ровно столько тщеславия, сколько ему недостает ума.“

„Как роскоши развратный сон,
Упадок и болезнь сменяет,
Так смерть в себе отмщение несёт,
И пролитая кровь к возмездию взывает.
Безумной ярости волна
Сей кровью рождена от века,
Спустив на род людской напасть,
Свирепейшего зверя — Человека.“

„Поддержать униженного — самый прекрасный поступок, на который только способен человек.“

„Глупцы восторгаются тем, что разумные люди просто одобряют.“

„Нет микроскопа, который бы так увеличивал, как глаза человека, любующегося собой.“

„Наиболее доверчивы самые серьезные люди.“

„Наши взгляды как наши часы: все они показывают разное время, но каждый верит только своим.“

„Сменяющие друг друга годы каждый день что-то крадут у нас, пока, наконец, они не украдут у нас нас самих.“

„Надежда, сопровождающая нас всю жизнь, не покидает нас даже в час смерти.“

„Публика — дура.“

„Что считается добродетелью в женщине, очень разнится с тем, что под этим подразумевается у мужчин. Очень хорошая женщина представляла бы собою очень жалкого мужчину.“

„Верх Счастья на вершине Доброты.“

„Приходить в гнев — значит вымещать на себе ошибки другого.“

„Тот, кто лжет, не отдает себе отчета в трудности своей задачи, ибо ему предстоит еще двадцать раз солгать, чтобы поддержать первую ложь.“

„Природы строй, её закон
В извечной тьме таился.
И молвил Бог: «Явись, Ньютон!»“

„Характер, который в житейском обиходе обыкновенно называется приятным, составляется из вежливости и фальши.“

„Я умираю от сотни хороших симптомов.“

„Слова подобны листьям: дерево, рождающее их очень много, приносит очень мало плодов.“

„Всем глупцам не терпится осмеять кого-нибудь.“

„Все мы плывём по волнам океана; разум служит нам компасом, а страсти — ветром, гонящим нас.“

„Разница между так называемым обыкновенным обществом и большим светом заключается разве только в том, что разговоры, в сущности одинаковые, ведутся в небольшой комнате или в большом салоне, за малым или большим столом, за двумя свечами или за двадцатью канделябрами.“

„Был этот мир извечной тьмой окутан“

„Малая образованность — опасная вещь.“

„Порядок — первый закон небес.“

„Стараться подействовать на пошлого человека мягкою и тонкою речью, все равно что пытаться обтесывать каменную глыбу бритвою.“

„Каждый человек отличается от другого и с каждым днём отличается сам от себя.“

„Покупать книги только потому, что они выпущены известным издателем, все равно, что покупать совсем не приходящийся впору костюм только потому, что сшит он известным портным.“

„И в этом зеркале находит взор
Небесный свод и склоны ближних гор;
Лесная даль в том зеркале жива,
Трепещут, расплываясь, дерева;
Сливаются стада с голубизной,
Поток раскрашен зеленью лесной;
Так, отразив леса и облака,
Впадает в Темзу тихая река.“

“True politeness consists in the being easy one-self, and making every body about one as easy as we can.”

“Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the ver sin itself: the thrist of gain was their crime, that thrist continued became their punishment and ruin. As for the few who have the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had (among whom is your humble servantl, I would have them sensible of their felicity, and convinced of the truth of old Hesiod's maxim, who, after half his estate was swallowed by the Directors of those days, resolv'd, that half to be more than the whole.”

“The stoic husband was the glorious thing.
The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true,
And lov'd his country.”

“This casket India's glowing gems unlocks
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.”

“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.”

“Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.”

“Say, is not absence death to those who love?”

“Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.”

“Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!”

“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.”

“How vast a memory has Love!”

“Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again,
Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised,
But, as the world, harmoniously confused:
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.”

“Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.”

“Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown;
O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!”

“Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade,
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade:
Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise,
And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.”

“Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.”

“There various news I heard of love and strife,
Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life,
Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,
Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
The fall of favourites, projects of the great,
Of aid mismanagements, taxations new:
All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.”

“I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your own, heartily wishing the good, that is the quiet of my country, and 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.”

“A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.”

“Well, if our author in the wife offends
He has a husband that will make amends;
He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving,
And sure such kind good creatures may be living.”

“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.”

“Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.”

“The famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.—When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord, "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house." Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.—In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time of much the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.—Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure.—I am sure you can give it a little turn."—I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.—Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do, (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."—I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed[; ] read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better."”

“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”

“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.”

“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”

“On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.”

“For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.”

“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll tease:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,
Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”