John Denham Quotes

17 Sourced Quotes

Actions o' th' last age are like almanacks o' th' last year.

John Denham
Uncertain ways unsafest are, and doubt a greater mischief than despair.

John Denham
Tis the most certain sign, the world's accurst That the best things corrupted, are the worst; 'Twas the corrupted Light of knowledge, hurl'd Sin, Death, and Ignorance o'er all the world; That Sun like this (from which our sight we have) Gaz'd on too long, resumes the light he gave.

John Denham
Sure there are poets which did never dream Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose Those made not poets, but the poets those.

John Denham
When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end.

John Denham
Ambition is like love, impatient
Both of delays and rivals.

John Denham
Old Mother Wit, and Nature gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spenser, and in Jonson, Art,
Of slower Nature got the start.

John Denham
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.

John Denham
Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too;
To live and die is all we have to do.

John Denham
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

John Denham
Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.

John Denham
Search not to find what lies too deeply hid,
Nor to know things, whose knowledge is forbid.

John Denham
Now every leaf and every moving breath
Presents a foe, and every foe a death.

John Denham
Nor ought a genius less than his that writ
Attempt translation.

John Denham
Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

John Denham
Youth, what man's age is like to be doth show,
We may our ends by our beginnings know.

John Denham
I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres... [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words... therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as [a] man of this age.

John Denham