John Dryden quotes:

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  • Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

  • Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.

  • Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.

  • 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.

  • Self-defence is Nature's eldest law.

  • He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

  • Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.

  • Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

  • Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!

  • But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.

  • The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.

  • Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus's blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure- Sweet is pleasure after pain.

  • Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.

  • Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.

  • Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.

  • Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.

  • Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.

  • And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.

  • War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

  • Bets at first were fool-traps, where the wise like spiders lay in ambush for the flies.

  • Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.

  • 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.

  • Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

  • Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

  • What passions cannot music raise or quell?

  • And write whatever Time shall bring to pass With pens of adamant on plates of brass.

  • He who proposes to be an author should first be a student.

  • 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.

  • Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

  • A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.

  • Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.

  • The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.

  • Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

  • Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.

  • Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.

  • Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.

  • When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

  • Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.

  • For they conquer who believe they can.

  • New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.

  • Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.

  • You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.

  • Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.

  • Love is a child that talks in broken language, yet then he speaks most plain.

  • Dead men tell no tales.

  • Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.

  • The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine.

  • Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.

  • As when the dove returning bore the mark Of earth restored to the long labouring ark; The relics of mankind, secure at rest, Oped every window to receive the guest, And the fair bearer of the message bless'd.

  • Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

  • 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.

  • Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.

  • Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.

  • I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language.

  • He with a graceful pride, While his rider every hand survey'd, Sprung loose, and flew into an escapade; Not moving forward, yet with every bound Pressing, and seeming still to quit his ground.

  • So the false spider, when her nets are spread, deep ambushed in her silent den does lie.

  • We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

  • When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.

  • Present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

  • Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.

  • Ill fortune seldom comes alone.

  • Beware the fury of a patient man.

  • Genius must be born, and never can be taught.

  • The blushing beauties of a modest maid.

  • Take the goods the gods provide thee.

  • Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying. If all the world be worth the winning, Think, oh think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee.

  • Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,--I mean good-nature,--are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.

  • Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.

  • 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.

  • The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race.

  • A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; Like Hectors in at every petty fray.

  • All heiresses are beautiful.

  • The propriety of thoughts and words, which are the hidden beauties of a play, are but confusedly judged in the vehemence of action.

  • Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.

  • Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle.

  • Music is inarticulate poesy.

  • Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend; The World's an Inn, and Death the journey's end.

  • He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.

  • Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts.

  • Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.

  • To die is landing on some distant shore.

  • Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

  • Fool, not to know that love endures no tie, And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.

  • Virtue without success is a fair picture shown by an ill light; but lucky men are favorites of heaven; all own the chief, when fortune owns the cause.

  • Lucky men are favorites of Heaven.

  • Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.

  • By education most have been misled.

  • By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man.

  • It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.

  • Ye moon and stars, bear witness to the truth.

  • He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.

  • Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.

  • And nobler is a limited command, Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's Ark.

  • not judging truth to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both according to interest.

  • Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

  • Among our crimes oblivion may be set.

  • A narrow mind begets obstinacy; we do not easily believe what we cannot see.

  • Order is the greatest grace.

  • Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure,- Sweet is pleasure after pain.

  • Sweet is pleasure after pain.

  • Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong.

  • Parting is worse than death; it is death of love!

  • Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.

  • Calms appear, when Storms are past; Love will have his Hour at last: Nature is my kindly Care; Mars destroys, and I repair; Take me, take me, while you may, Venus comes not ev'ry Day.

  • Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

  • He who would search for pearls must dive below.

  • Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.

  • He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.

  • Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown, A flaw is in thy ill-bak'd vessel found; 'Tis hollow, and returns a jarring sound, Yet thy moist clay is pliant to command, Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand: Now take the mould; now bend thy mind to feel The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.

  • Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.

  • 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.

  • Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

  • Home is the sacred refuge of our life.

  • Repentance is but want of power to sin.

  • The good we have enjoyed from Heaven's free will, and shall we murmur to endure the ill?

  • Love is love's reward.

  • If one must be rejected, one succeed, make him my lord within whose faithful breast is fixed my image, and who loves me best.

  • Never was patriot yet, but was a fool

  • Boldness is a mask for fear, however great

  • I am sore wounded but not slainI will lay me down and bleed a whileAnd then rise up to fight again

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