"To err is human; to forgive, divine"
About this Quote
A tidy couplet that flatters us with realism and then undercuts us with aspiration. Pope starts by granting human fallibility - error as the baseline setting of the species - but the line only really lands when it pivots to forgiveness as something almost embarrassingly out of our reach. The wit is in the asymmetry: sin gets a shrug; absolution gets a halo. It is less a soothing proverb than a moral stress test.
In Pope's world, that contrast is doing cultural work. Writing in an age obsessed with manners, reputation, and social penalties, he offers a standard that quietly indicts the very audience most likely to repeat the phrase at dinner. If everyone errs, then the scandal industry is hypocritical by design. If forgiving is "divine", then our appetite for punishment starts to look like a spiritual failure masquerading as virtue.
The subtext is also strategic self-defense. Pope, frequently attacked for his satire, implies that critics should practice mercy, not moralistic scorekeeping. Yet he doesn't let the offender off the hook: calling forgiveness "divine" doesn't normalize wrongdoing; it elevates the response to it. The line's staying power comes from that double move: it recognizes how petty and reactive people are, then makes grace feel like the rarest form of power. Forgiveness isn't framed as softness; it's framed as transcendence - an act that outclasses the original mistake.
In Pope's world, that contrast is doing cultural work. Writing in an age obsessed with manners, reputation, and social penalties, he offers a standard that quietly indicts the very audience most likely to repeat the phrase at dinner. If everyone errs, then the scandal industry is hypocritical by design. If forgiving is "divine", then our appetite for punishment starts to look like a spiritual failure masquerading as virtue.
The subtext is also strategic self-defense. Pope, frequently attacked for his satire, implies that critics should practice mercy, not moralistic scorekeeping. Yet he doesn't let the offender off the hook: calling forgiveness "divine" doesn't normalize wrongdoing; it elevates the response to it. The line's staying power comes from that double move: it recognizes how petty and reactive people are, then makes grace feel like the rarest form of power. Forgiveness isn't framed as softness; it's framed as transcendence - an act that outclasses the original mistake.
Quote Details
| Topic | Forgiveness |
|---|---|
| Source | An Essay on Criticism — contains the line "To err is human; to forgive, divine." by Alexander Pope (poem). |
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