Quote#Poetry
I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some…
Quote byAlexander Pope · 1688–1744
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Preface.
English (original)
I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.
— 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.
Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.
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.
They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.