If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

There is a majesty in simplicity.

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

The most positive men are the most credulous

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise

An honest man’s the noblest work of God

Health consists with temperance alone

Whatever is right.

Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night

If I am right, thy grace impart; Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O, teach my heart to find that better way

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul

Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer

What’s fame? a fancied life in other’s breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

Blest who can unconcernedly find, hours, days, and years slide soft away, in health of body, peace of mind

The proper study of mankind is man

Authors are partial to their wit

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole

True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit

All forms that perish other forms supply – like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, they rise, they break, and to that sea return

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, his can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.

Born but to die, and reasoning but to err. Alike in ignorance, his reason such, whether he thinks too little or too much.

Know, Nature’s children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear

Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide

Where one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed

And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, one truth is clear: Whatever is, is right

Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right

He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit, might boldly censure, as he boldly writ

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

Brevity is the soul of wit

Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, but the joint force and full result of all

This long disease, my life

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

The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

How tragedy and comedy embrace; How farce and epic get a jumbled race; How time himself stands still at her command, realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land

Thus critics, of less judgment than caprice, curious not knowing, not exact but nice, form short ideas; and offend in arts by a love to parts.

Two purposes in human nature rule. Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain

Most critics, fond of some subservient art, still make the whole depend upon a part

Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom, lost in a convent’s solitary gloom

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, and Venus sets ere Mercury can rise

Is not absence death to those who love?

Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, and make two lovers happy

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

Of all affliction taught a lover yet, ’tis true the hardest science to forget

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, to whom related, or by whom begot, a heap of dust alone remains of thee, ’tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies

Ah! What avails it me the flocks to keep, who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep

Curse on all laws but those which love has made

How vast a memory has Love

Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call, and if I lose thy love, I lose my all

Fame, wealth, and honors! What are you to love?

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot

What conscience dictates to be done, or warns me not to do, this teach me more than Hell to shun, that more than Heaven pursue

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it

The way of the creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the great harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

No creature smarts so little as a fool

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Beauty attracts us men, but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed with gold or silver beside, it attracts with tenfold power.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Order is heaven’s first law

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

To err is nature, to rectify error is glory

Then shall man’s pride and dullness comprehend his actions’, passions’, being’s, use and end

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall that vice or virtue there is none at all.

On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, reason the card, but passion is the gale.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves

The love of money is the root of all evil.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jury-men may dine

A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery

What bliss to none but who the bliss believe

Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, lie in three words: health, peace, and competence

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

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot

For forms of government let fools contest; that which is best administered is best

What mighty contests rise from trivial thing

The tongue is the only instrument that gets sharper with use.

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

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, with loads of learned lumber in his head

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt

Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind

Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, when we but praise ourselves in other men.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art

Hope springs eternal in the human breast

All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance.

Act well your part; there all the honor lies.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, as to be hated needs but to be seen

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul

The wisest mind has something yet to learn

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

To err is human; to forgive, divine

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.