The Dunciad Quotes

“Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,
Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“Thee too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The Pains and Penalties of Idleness.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“A Lumberhouse of books in ev'ry head,
For ever reading, never to be read.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

“Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And Universal Darkness buries All.”
― Alexander Pope, The Dunciad