But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

Order is heaven's first law.

At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

Never find fault with the absent.

Passions are the gales of life.

No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance.

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.