“There ought, perhaps, to be more indulgence shown to things of love and gallantry than any others, because they are generally written when people are young, and intended for ladies who are not supposed to be very old.”

A plea for gentler judgement of verses written young, and for the young · Preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 1692

• Judgement
• Love
• Youth

“To instruct those who are not critics, at the same time I write myself, is like selling arms to an enemy in time of war.”

A modest doubt about teaching the rules while still practising the art · Preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 1692

• Criticism
• Humility
• Writing

“They ought to be smooth, clear, tender, and passionate. The thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated than in pastoral.”

His standard for the love elegy, as against the simpler pastoral · Preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 1692

• Love
• Poetry
• Style

“There ought to be the same difference observed between pastorals and elegies as between the life of the country and the court.”

A plain rule for matching manner to the life the poem pretends to · Preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 1692

• Court
• Poetry
• Style

“If the end of wit be not to render oneself agreeable, I shall scarce envy them any other use they can make of it.”

Setting sociability, not display, as the proper use of wit · Preface to Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant, 1692

• Conversation
• Courtesy
• Wit

“We young authors are like young women, who are always plaguing a man when he is once acquainted with their infirmities.”

A wry apology for returning again to an older writer for advice · Letter to John Dryden, early 1691

• Authors
• Humour
• Youth

“To tell anybody of their faults with a design that they should mend them is certainly the highest art of friendship; to tell them that others may avoid them is a just end of criticising; but to do it only to lessen one man's reputation, without any design of bettering another's, is what is properly called malice.”

Distinguishing friendly correction from criticism meant only to diminish · Letter to John Dryden, about 1691

• Criticism
• Friendship
• Honesty

“An epigram, it is true, is but a trifle, but so difficult a trifle that Rapin says it is enough to have made one good in one's lifetime.”

On the craft of the short form, and why a single success may be enough · Letter to John Dryden, about 1691

• Craft
• Poetry
• Wit

“There was one way left of excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim.”

The counsel Pope credited with steering him toward correctness rather than mere grandeur · Advice to the young Pope, as reported in Spence's Anecdotes

• Criticism
• Excellence
• Poetry