Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents’, or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp’d in numbers, for the numbers came.
Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.
As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.
Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Mankind is unamendable.
Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation’s aid, But bribes a senate, and the land’s betray’d.
Music the fiercest grief can charm, And fate’s severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above.
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Truth shines the brighter, clad in verse.
The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.
A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source.
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.
That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.
Who are we to trust if not our family?
Oh what would Rome be without a plot?
Sometimes one barely understand oneself.
May the Lord array thee in the garment of salvation and surround thee with the cloak of happiness.