An Essay on Man

"In pride, in reasning pride, our error lies; All quit their spere, and rush into the skies! Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. Aspiring to be Gods if Angels fell, Aspiring to be Angels men rebel."

"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."

"Thus God and Nature linked the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same."

"Behold the child, by Natures kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer books are the toys of age! Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and lifes poor play is oer."

"Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."

"For forms of government let fools contest; Whateer is best administered is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His cant be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankinds concern is charity."

"Our proper bliss depends on what we blame."

"Reasons whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. But Health consists with Temperance alone, And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own."

"Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies."

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella."

"Whats Fame? a fancied life in others breath, A thing beyond us, evn before our death."

"As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns As the rapt seraph that adores and burns. To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!"