To err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine.

The line comes in the second part of An Essay on Criticism, where Pope deplores the quarrels of writers and critics. Those who reach the summit of Parnassus, he writes, spend their pains kicking others down, and “Contending Wits” become “the Sport of Fools”. He asks to what base ends mortals are driven by the “Sacred Lust of Praise”, and pleads: “Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost!” Good nature and good sense must always go together; hence the line. Right after, he allows that noble minds may keep some spleen, but tells them to discharge it on worthier targets, such as obscenity.

Pope published the poem anonymously in 1711, in his early twenties. It gave English several proverbs, including “A little learning is a dang’rous thing” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Here he completes an old Latin saying, errare humanum est. The first edition spells “Humane”, then an ordinary spelling of “human”; the two words later went their separate ways.

An Essay on Criticism, Part II, line 525, spelling of the first edition (1928 facsimile), 1711

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