John Dryden Quotations

Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.

If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.

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

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.

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.

He who would search for pearls must dive below.

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

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.

Love is not in our choice but in our fate.

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

For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.

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.

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

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

Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, But Genius must be born; and never can be taught

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

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

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.

The first is the law, the last prerogative.

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!

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today.

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

They that possess the prince possess the laws.

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

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

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

And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.

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.

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

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

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.

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

God never made his work for man to mend.

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

To die is landing on some distant shore.

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

Repentance is but want of power to sin.

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

All objects lose by too familiar a view.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat. Yet, fooled by hope, men favour the deceit; trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: to-morrow's falser than the former day.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat yet, fool'd by hope, men favour the deceit

She deserves / More worlds than I can lose.

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

Nature meant me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit.

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

I am to be married within these three days; married past redemption.

I'm a little wounded but I'm not slain; I will lay me down for to bleed awhile, Then I'll rise and fight with you again

Great wits are sure to madness near allied - And thin partitions do their bounds divide

Fought all his battles o'er again; / And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony / This universal frame began: / From harmony to harmony / Through all the compass of the notes it ran, / The diapason closing full in Man.

Fortune, that with malicious joy, Does man her slave oppress, Proud of her office to destroy, Is seldom pleas'd to bless

If this were the last day of your life, my friend Tell me, what do you think you would do then? Stand up to the blow, that fate has struck upon you? Make the most of all you still have coming to you? or Lay down on the ground and let the tears flow f

He trudged along, unknowing what he sought, and whistled as he went, for want of a thought

He who purposes to be an author, should first be a student.

He loved me well: so well he could but die - To show he loved me better than his life; he lost it for me

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, / The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

God's pampered people whom, debauched with ease, / No king could govern, nor no God could please.

Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own webs from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch

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

Who, for false quantities, was whipped at school.

While yet a young probationer, / And candidate of heaven.

To live at ease, and not be bound to think.

Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you don't let other people spend it for you.

True fops help nature's work, and go to school - to file and finish God Almighty's fool

Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.

Well may they boast themselves an ancient Nation; For they were bred e'er manners were in fashion

Welcome as kindly showers to the long parched earth.

When rattling bones together fly, / From the four corners of the sky.

When a man's life is under debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

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

To see and to be seen, in heaps they run; / Some to undo, and some to be undone.

Witness ye days and nights, and all ye hours, / That danced away with down upon your feet.

Those wanting wit affect gravity and go by the name of solid men

With ravished ears / The monarch hears, / Assumes the god, / Affects to nod, / And seems to shake the spheres.

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend;

Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

Did wisely from expensive sins refrain, / And never broke the Sabbath, but for gain.

Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.

And this unpolished rugged verse I chose / As fittest for discourse and nearest prose.

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

And thus the child imposes on the man.

And, wide as his command, / Scattered his Maker's image through the land.

Every age has a kind of universal genius, which includes those that live in it to some particular studies

During his office, treason was no crime. / The sons of Belial had a glorious time.

Dying bless the hand that gave the blow.

Errors like straws upon the surface flow: Who would search for pearls must dive below

Errors like straws upon the surface flow: Who would search for pearls must dive below

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; he who would search for pearls must dive below.

Far more numerous are those as such; who think to little and talk to much.

Farewell, too little and too lately known, / Whom I began to think and call my own.

The tariff issue is a bit different from that of taxes - although a tariff-free zone in cyberspace for electronic transmissions makes sense, the same is not true for taxes - there is no reason for cyberspace to be a tax haven,

So sicken waning moons too near the sun,/ And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.

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

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

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure