Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Ruling Passion
In men we various ruling passions find;
In women, two almost divide the mind;
Those, only fix’d, they first or last obey,
The love of pleasure and the love of sway.
Pope.—Moral Essay; to a Lady, Epi. II. Line 207.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
Search then the ruling passion: there alone
The wild are constant, and the cunning known.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. I. Line 172.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. III. Line 153; and see his Epistle to Lord Cobham, Epi. I. Part III.