John Dryden Quotes - Page 5

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

So poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade.

• John Dryden / Poet

Having mourned your sin, for outward Eden lost, find paradise within.

• John Dryden / Poet

Men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.

• John Dryden / Poet

The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind's great bribe.

• John Dryden / Poet

When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear.

• John Dryden / Poet

We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.

• John Dryden / Poet

Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.

• John Dryden / Poet

To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free, These are imperial arts.

• John Dryden / Poet

Music, Music for a while Shall all your cares beguile. Alexander's Feast

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Pleasure never comes sincere to man; but lent by heaven upon hard usury.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Fortune confounds the wise, And when they least expect it turns the dice.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

All flowers will droop in the absence of the sun that waked their sweets.

• John Dryden / Poet

For mysterious things of faith, rely on the proponent, Heaven's authority.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

To breed up the son to common sense is evermore the parent's least expense.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

A coward is the kindest animal; 'Tis the most forgiving creature in a fight.

• John Dryden / Poet

Such subtle Covenants shall be made,Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.

• John Dryden / Poet

More liberty begets desire of more; The hunger still increases with the store

• John Dryden / Poet

It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

If you are for a merry jaunt, I will try, for once, who can foot it farthest.

• John Dryden / Poet

Time glides with undiscover'd haste; The future but a length behind the past.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Uncertain whose the narrowest span,--the clown unread, or half-read gentleman.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.

• John Dryden / Poet

Much malice mingled with a little wit Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.

• John Dryden / Poet

Murder may pass unpunishd for a time, But tardy justice will oertake the crime.

• John Dryden / Poet

Ever a glutton, at another's cost, But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.

• John Dryden / Poet

Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem.

• John Dryden / Poet

Prodigious actions may as well be done, by weaver's issue, as the prince's son.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night.

• John Dryden / Poet

To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

• John Dryden / Poet

The World to Bacon does not only owe it's present knowledge, but its future too.

• John Dryden / Poet

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

• John Dryden / Poet

The Fates but only spin the coarser clue; The finest of the wool is left for you.