If you type the words “most famous quote of all time” into Google, the first link you receive will tell you that the most famous quote was spoken by Alexander Pope. The quote is as follows;
“To Err is human, to forgive divine”
This quote comes from “An Essay on Criticism” Part 2 written in 1709. Pope titled it an “essay” but it is actually a poem. Another quite famous quote from this piece of work is one of my favourites;
“Fools rush in where angel s fear to tread”
I love this quote but not for the meaning behind it, that we should not take life too quickly but for the simple fact that it is a really beautifully written piece of prose.
Back to the Err quote. Pope did not in fact come up with the term, to err is human. It is actually the direct English translation of an ancient Latin proverb; “Errare humanum est” but when Pope added the final piece “to forgive divine” it really gave this proverb real meaning. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody, without exceptions. So like it or not we must learn to forgive or otherwise we will have no people in our lives. And a life without people is a lonely one.
On a side note, as this is such a well known quote one of the funniest rewrite of this quote was;
“To Err is human, To Arr is Pirate”
And in fact it is.
a quote to think about 