Date: 1715-1720

"Homer draws him (as we have seen) soft of Speech, the natural Quality of an amorous Temper; vainly gay in War as well as Love; with a Spirit that can be surprized and recollected, that can receive Impressions of Shame or Apprehension on the one side, or of Generosity and Courage on the ot...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1715-1720

"Let great Achilles, to the Gods resign'd, / To Reason yield the Empire o'er his Mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717, 1736

"Like Eastern Kings a lazy state they keep, / And close confin'd in their own palace sleep."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733, 1736

"The ruling Passion conquers reason still."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"And hence one Master Passion in the breast, / Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"So, cast and mingled with his very frame, / The mind's disease, its ruling passion came: / Each vital humour which should feed the whole, / Soon flows to this, in body and in soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse; / Wit, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worse; / Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r; / As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sowr; / We wretched subjects tho' to lawful sway, / In this weak queen, some fav'rite still obey."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, / Is emulation in the learn'd or brave:"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1734

"'Tis in the ruling Passion: there alone, / The wild are constant, and the cunning known, / The fool consistent, and the false sincere; / Priests, Princes, Women, no dissemblers here."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1734

"Clodio, the Scorn and Wonder of our days, / Whose ruling passion was the Lust of Praise."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)