quote · Words worth keeping
It often happens that those are the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slanderers; as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
It often happens that those are the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slanderers; as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
Approximate author period: c. 1716 AD · early modern
Meaning not yet available
This entry is preserved in the wider collection, but an individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Browse entries with explanations and examples ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Alexander Pope
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1716 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1688–1744)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 148 · printed citation: Alexander Pope. · compiler notes excluded
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
More from Alexander Pope ↗