John Dryden

Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;And in one word, heroically mad.

— John Dryden

Railing in other men may be a crime,For to write verse with him is to transpose.

— John Dryden

With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.

— John Dryden

All human things are subject to decay,And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

— John Dryden

The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

— John Dryden

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy commandAnd torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

— John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone,Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.

— John Dryden

Welcome, thou kind deceiver!

— John Dryden

Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

— John Dryden

I can enjoy her while she's kind; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

— John Dryden

The trumpet's loud clangorExcites us to arms.

— John Dryden

The soft complaining flute,The woes of hopeless lovers.

— John Dryden

So, when the last and dreadful HourAnd musick shall untune the Sky.

— John Dryden

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

— John Dryden

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.

— John Dryden

For truth has such a face and such a mienAs to be loved needs only to be seen.

— John Dryden

Of all the tyrannies on human kindThe worst is that which persecutes the mind.

— John Dryden

Reason to rule, mercy to forgive:The first is law, the last prerogative.

— John Dryden

And kind as kings upon their coronation day.

— John Dryden

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

— John Dryden

Than a successive title long and dark,Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.

— John Dryden

Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.

— John Dryden

As long as words a different sense will bear, The word's a weathercock for every wind.

— John Dryden

Not only hating David, but the king.

— John Dryden

A man so various, that he seem’d to beWas chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

— John Dryden

So over violent, or over civil,That every man with him was God or Devil.

— John Dryden

His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.

— John Dryden

Him of the western dome, whose weighty senseFlows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.

— John Dryden

All have not the gift of martyrdom.

— John Dryden

For you may palm upon us new for old:

— John Dryden

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

— John Dryden

Jealousy, the jaundice of the soul.

— John Dryden

For present joys are more to flesh and bloodThan a dull prospect of a distant good.

— John Dryden

T' abhor the makers, and their laws approve,Is to hate traitors and the treason love.

— John Dryden

Secret guilt by silence is betrayed.

— John Dryden

Possess your soul with patience.

— John Dryden

For those whom God to ruin has design'd,He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.

— John Dryden

Happy, happy, happy pair!None but the brave deserves the fair.

— John Dryden

With ravished earsAnd seems to shake the spheres.

— John Dryden

Sound the trumpets; beat the drums...Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.

— John Dryden

Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.

— John Dryden

Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.

— John Dryden

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,With not a friend to close his eyes.

— John Dryden

For pity melts the mind to love.

— John Dryden

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,Take the good the gods provide thee.

— John Dryden

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.

— John Dryden

Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.

— John Dryden

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.

— John Dryden

Timotheus, to his breathing flute,Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

— John Dryden

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,She drew an angel down.

— John Dryden

Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.

— John Dryden

My next desire is, void of care and strife,A winding valley, and a lofty wood.

— John Dryden

Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

— John Dryden

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,Long labours both by sea and land he bore.

— John Dryden

Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,Or exercise their spite in human woe?

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

Endure the hardships of your present state,Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.

— John Dryden

Like you, an alien in a land unknown,I learn to pity woes so like my own.

— John Dryden

The gates of hell are open night and day;In this the task and mighty labor lies.

— John Dryden

Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,The mystic wonders of your silent state!

— John Dryden

Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.

— John Dryden

I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.

— John Dryden

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

'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our fore-fathers and great-grandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are call'd by other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.

— John Dryden

Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

— John Dryden

The wrath of Peleus' son, O Muse, resound;Were sent, in early youth, to shades of night.

— John Dryden

A very merry, dancing, drinking,Laughing, quaffing, and unthinkable time.

— John Dryden

The sword within the scabbard keep,And let mankind agree.

— John Dryden

Calms appear, when storms are past,Love will have its hour at last.

— John Dryden

Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.

— John Dryden

All, all of a piece throughout:And time to begin a new.

— John Dryden

Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,The power of beauty I remember yet.

— John Dryden

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

— John Dryden

He trudged along unknowing what he sought,And whistled as he went, for want of thought.

— John Dryden

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyesAnd gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

— John Dryden

Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

— John Dryden

She hugged the offender, and forgave the offense:Sex to the last.

— John Dryden

And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,And ever but in times of need at hand.

— John Dryden

Of seeming arms to make a short essay,Then hasten to be drunk — the business of the day.

— John Dryden

Above any Greek or Roman name.

— John Dryden

And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

— John Dryden

Wit will shineThrough the harsh cadence of a rugged line.

— John Dryden

I am sore wounded but not slain

— John Dryden

So softly death succeeded life in her,She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

And that one hunting, which the Devil design'dFor one fair female, lost him half the kind.

— John Dryden

Happy who in his verse can gently steerFrom grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

— John Dryden

And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy careTurn'd by a gentle fire and roasted rare.

— John Dryden

She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,Can draw you to her with a single hair.

— John Dryden

Our souls sit close and silently within,That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

— John Dryden

Thespis, the first professor of our art,At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.

— John Dryden

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

— John Dryden

Burn daylight.

— John Dryden

I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.

— John Dryden

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;Within that circle none durst walk but he.

— John Dryden

Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.

— John Dryden

Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.

— John Dryden

Love is love's reward.

— John Dryden

But far more numerous was the herd of such,

— John Dryden

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.

— John Dryden

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,And in that silence we the tempest fear.

— John Dryden

All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,Even Lust and Envy sleep.

— John Dryden

By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.

— John Dryden

[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.

— John Dryden

Their heavenly harps a lower strain began, and in soft music mourn the fall of man.

— John Dryden

And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears, And music more melodious than the spheres.

— John Dryden

[Music] is inarticulate poesy.

— John Dryden

Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

Death in itself is nothing; but we fearTo be we know not what, we know not where.

— John Dryden

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.What the first sprightly running could not give.

— John Dryden

'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;It pays our hopes with something still that's new.

— John Dryden

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

Men met each other with erected look,And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.

— John Dryden

Since heaven's eternal year is thine.

— John Dryden

O gracious God! how far have weProfaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!

— John Dryden

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

— John Dryden

Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes careAnd sent us back to praise, who came to pray.

— John Dryden

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

— John Dryden

Three poets, in three distant ages born,To make a third, she joined the former two.

— John Dryden

This is the porcelain clay of humankind.

— John Dryden

I have a soul that like an ample shieldCan take in all, and verge enough for more.

— John Dryden

A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.

— John Dryden

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.

— John Dryden

The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine.

— John Dryden

Fairest Isle, all isles excelling,And forsake her Cyprian groves.

— John Dryden

Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the cement of all societies.

— John Dryden

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

— John Dryden

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.

— John Dryden

Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,Against your judgment, your departed friend!

— John Dryden

Look round the habitable world: how fewKnow their own good, or knowing it, pursue.

— John Dryden

I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.

— John Dryden

I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric...

— John Dryden

Words, once my stock, are wanting to commendSo great a poet and so good a friend.

— John Dryden

Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife.

— John Dryden

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,God never made his work for man to mend.

— John Dryden

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees — As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

— John Dryden

He was exhaled; his great Creator drewHis spirit, as the sun the morning dew.

— John Dryden

Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

A Heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform.

— John Dryden

Here lies my wife:here let her lie!Now she's at rest, and so am I.

— John Dryden

I am as free as Nature first made man,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

What precious drops are thoseBright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

— John Dryden

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

— John Dryden

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;And they have kept it since by being dead.

— John Dryden

What flocks of critics hover here to-day,And follow dying poets by the scent.

— John Dryden

He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind;Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

— John Dryden

Give, you gods, I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

— John Dryden

The wretched have no friends.

— John Dryden

Men are but children of a larger growth; And full as craving, too, and full as vain.

— John Dryden

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

— John Dryden

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

— John Dryden

His hair just grizzled,As in a green old age.

— John Dryden

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

— John Dryden

She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,Grows cold even in the summer of her age.

— John Dryden

There is a pleasure sureIn being mad which none but madmen know.

— John Dryden

Lord of humankind.

— John Dryden

Like a led victim, to my death I'll go, And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.

— John Dryden

Second thoughts, they say, are best.

— John Dryden

He's a sure card.

— John Dryden

And plenty makes us poor.

— John Dryden

They say everything in the world is good for something.

— John Dryden

Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.

— John Dryden

Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,In him alone 't was natural to please.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

In friendship false, implacable in hate,Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

— John Dryden

And heaven had wanted one immortal song.And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.

— John Dryden

Auspicious Prince! at whose nativityThe young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

— John Dryden

Behold him setting in his western skies,The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.

— John Dryden

His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim.

— John Dryden

All empire is no more than power in trust.

— John Dryden

Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.

— John Dryden

But love's a malady without a cure.

— John Dryden

Your case no tame expedients will afford,And self-defence is Nature's eldest law.

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

A man so various, that he seemed to beWas chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

— John Dryden

Railing and praising were his usual themes;That every man with him was God or devil.

— John Dryden

Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;And peace itself is war in masquerade.

— John Dryden

Nor is the people's judgment always true:The most may err as grossly as the few.

— John Dryden

Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.

— John Dryden

Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yetIn his own worth.

— John Dryden

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

— John Dryden

Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin’d:Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.

— John Dryden