1. “A little learning is a dang'rous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; / There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, / And drinking largely sobers us again.”
2. “All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.”
3. “All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.”
4. "A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it."
5. “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
6. “Ambition ... The glorious fault of angels and of gods.”
7. “But blind to former as to future fate,
What mortal knows his pre-existent state?”
8. “Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused and disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world!”
9. "Curse on all laws but those which love has made!
Love, free as air at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies."
10. “Fools admire, but men of sense approve.”
11. “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.”
12. “Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies.”
13. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come."
14. “In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
15. “In vain sedate reflections we would make
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.”
16. “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 great:
With too much knowledge for the skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!”
17. “Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've played, and loved, and ate, and drank your fill.
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.”
18. “Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.”
19. “Love, free as air at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.”
20. “Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!”
21. “Men would be angels, angels would be gods.”
22. “Not to go back, is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk at least before they dance.”
23. “On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.”
24. “One science only will one genius fit: So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
25. “Order is heaven's first law.”
26. “Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes:
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.”
27. "Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public flame nor private dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd,
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all."
28. “See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;
Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot.”
29. ”See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!”
30. “She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day.
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea,
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon.”
31. "Some people will never learn anything, for this reason: because they understand everything too soon."
32. “’T is but a part we see, and not a whole.”
33. “That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.”
34. “The difference is as great between
The optics seeing as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own;
Or come discolor'd through out passions shown;
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.”
35. “There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.”
36. "The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."
37. “True, conscious Honour is to feel no sin, / He's armed without that's innocent within; / Be this thy Screen, and this thy Wall of Brass.”
38. “Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.”
39. “Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say, what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?”
40. “Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”
41. “Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.”
42. “Yet eat in dreams, the custard of the day.”
