Alexander Pope

Literary Birthday – 21 May – Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was born 21 May 1688, and died 30 May 1744.

12 Famous Quotes

  1. Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
  2. 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.
  3. Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.
  4. The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.
  5. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
  6. To err is human; to forgive, divine.
  7. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance.
  8. Wit is the lowest form of humour.
  9. To buy books as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor.
  10. There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
  11. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
  12. Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. Famous for his use of the heroic couplet, he is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. His most famous poem is arguably The Rape of the Lock.

Source for Image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Pope_by_Michael_Dahl.jpg

Michael Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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Posted on: 21st May 2013
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