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The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,Are what ten thousand envy and adore:All, all look up, with reverential Awe,At crimes that 'scape, or triump...more

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To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart

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The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man's error and misery.

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Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to seeMen not afraid of God afraid of me.

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Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: ...more

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Know thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.

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Oh let me live my own! and die so too! ("To live and die is all I have to do:") Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read wha...more

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A little learning is a dangerous thing.Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,and drinking largely so...more

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True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives u...more

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Music resembles poetry, in eachAre nameless graces which no methods teach,And which a master hand alone can reach.

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Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a li...more

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Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely ...more

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In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be ang...more

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Remembrance and reflection how allied!What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!

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Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,With too much quickness ever to be taught,With too much thin...more