John Dryden famous quotes
Last updated: Jul 22, 2024
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If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?
-- John Dryden -
The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
-- John Dryden -
I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again.
-- John Dryden -
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Love and Time with reverence use, Treat them like a parting friend: Nor the golden gifts refuse Which in youth sincere they send: For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before.
-- John Dryden -
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
-- John Dryden -
Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
-- John Dryden -
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Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.
-- John Dryden -
Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.
-- John Dryden -
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Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.
-- John Dryden -
Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.
-- John Dryden -
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
-- John Dryden -
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He who would search for pearls must dive below.
-- John Dryden -
Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.
-- John Dryden -
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Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
-- John Dryden -
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
-- John Dryden -
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Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.
-- John Dryden -
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.
-- John Dryden -
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Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
-- John Dryden -
Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts.
-- John Dryden -
Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
-- John Dryden -
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There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally consists that beauty which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his, I must once again say, is never to be copied; and since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation.
-- John Dryden -
Much malice mingled with a little wit Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.
-- John Dryden -
Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends.
-- John Dryden -
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The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.
-- John Dryden -
And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd For one fair female, lost him half the kind.
-- John Dryden -
A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to makea malefactordiesweetly was only belonging toher husband.
-- John Dryden -
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I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night.
-- John Dryden -
The gods, (if gods to goodness are inclined If acts of mercy touch their heavenly mind), And, more than all the gods, your generous heart, Conscious of worth, requite its own desert!
-- John Dryden -
And he, who servilely creeps after sense, Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence.
-- John Dryden -
None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.
-- John Dryden -
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What I have left is from my native spring; I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.
-- John Dryden -
From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners. Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave; God cannot grant so much as they can crave.
-- John Dryden -
Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own.
-- John Dryden -
How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! Tosparethegrossness ofthenames, and to dothe thing yet moreseverely, isto drawa full face, and tomake the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing.
-- John Dryden -
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not judging truth to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both according to interest.
-- John Dryden -
Railing in other men may be a crime, But ought to pass for mere instinct in him: Instinct he follows and no further knows, For to write verse with him is to transprose.
-- John Dryden -
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
-- John Dryden -
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With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek; And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek: Of these, my barbers take a costly care.
-- John Dryden -
They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.
-- John Dryden -
My whole life Has been a golden dream of love and friendship.
-- John Dryden -
For lawful power is still superior found, When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.
-- John Dryden -
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Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.
-- John Dryden -
Virgil and Horace [were] the severest writers of the severest age.
-- John Dryden -
For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
-- John Dryden -
Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov'd with such transcendent passion, I soar'd, at first, quite out of reason's view, And now am lost above it.
-- John Dryden -
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I have a soul that like an ample shield Can take in all, and verge enough for more.
-- John Dryden -
The World to Bacon does not only owe it's present knowledge, but its future too.
-- John Dryden -
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.
-- John Dryden -
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When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.
-- John Dryden -
I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.
-- John Dryden -
A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.
-- John Dryden -
To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
-- John Dryden -
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I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric...
-- John Dryden -
Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.
-- John Dryden -
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The Fates but only spin the coarser clue; The finest of the wool is left for you.
-- John Dryden -
While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.
-- John Dryden -
Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne.
-- John Dryden -
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Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.
-- John Dryden -
Ah, how sweet it is to love! Ah, how gay is young Desire! And what pleasing pains we prove When we first approach Love's fire!
-- John Dryden -
By viewing nature, nature's handmaid art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow: Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.
-- John Dryden -
They first condemn that first advised the ill.
-- John Dryden -
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And that the Scriptures, though not everywhere Free from corruption, or entire, or clear, Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire In all things which our needful faith require.
-- John Dryden -
Revealed religion first informed thy sight, and reason saw not till faith sprung to light.
-- John Dryden -
Sculptors are obliged to follow the manners of the painters, and to make many ample folds, which are unsufferable hardness, and more like a rock than a natural garment.
-- John Dryden -
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He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master.
-- John Dryden -
What precious drops are those, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their faint dew?
-- John Dryden -
Trust on and think To-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new Joys, cuts off what we possest.
-- John Dryden -
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We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.
-- John Dryden -
Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
-- John Dryden -
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
-- John Dryden -
Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.
-- John Dryden -
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The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.
-- John Dryden -
Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.
-- John Dryden -
Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem.
-- John Dryden -
There's a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.
-- John Dryden -
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Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.
-- John Dryden -
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.
-- John Dryden -
When Misfortune is asleep, let no one wake her.
-- John Dryden -
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