Quote#Money & Wealth
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Quote byAlexander Pope · 1688–1744
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c. 1704, published 1713), lines 298-299. Compare: "I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to", Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Wif of Bathes Prologue", line 6154; "The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly .
English (original)
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.
— Alexander Pope
More from Alexander Pope
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.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Well, if our author in the wife offends He has a husband that will make amends; He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving, And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.
They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.