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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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Some who grow dull religious straight commenceAnd gain in morals what they lose in sense.

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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

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

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Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the ...more

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Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,In pleasing memory of all he stole.

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

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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