A Formula For Wisdom

“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. Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, and that mercy show to me.” – Alexander Pope

Pope is credited with some of the most lasting and well-used sayings in our lexicon:  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”  “To err is human, to forgive divine” and  “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” being just a few.

Born in England on this date in 1688, Pope was a sickly child who was mostly self-educated, reading voraciously and teaching himself Latin and Greek while studying the works of Homer and Virgil and the great English writers Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dryden.    Fascinated by languages and how they related to one-another, he also learned French, German and Italian so he could read great works of literature in the languages in which they were first written.

Finding that Homer’s work was skewed in English translations, he set out to “translate it correctly,” and his finished piece has been cited as THE great translation of the great epic poet.  Once he began writing down his own thoughts he became the second-most frequently quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary, only after Shakespeare.  

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

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