“Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'tis but the funeral of the former year.”

— Alexander Pope, "To Mrs. M. B. on her Birthday"

About Alexander Pope

1688 – 1744

English poet, author of "An Essay on Criticism" and "The Rape of the Lock".

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown propos'd as things forgot.”

“Years following years steal something ev'ry day. At last they steal us from ourselves away.”

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

“Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.”

“Time, in its stealthy gliding, cheats us all without our notice; nothing goes more swiftly than do the years.”

“Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form.”

“All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass.”

“A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.”