John Dryden Quotes

344 Sourced Quotes

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.

John Dryden
Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.

John Dryden
Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words.

John Dryden
For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?

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

John Dryden
Who thinks all Science, as all Virtue, vain; Who counts Geometry and numbers Toys...

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

John Dryden
Science perfects genius; and also moderates that fury of the fancy which cannot contain itself within the bounds of reason; but often carries a man into dangerous extremes.

John Dryden
A woman's counsel brought us first to woe,
And made her man his paradise forego,
Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been
As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

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

John Dryden
Discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest; for they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.

John Dryden
Revealed religion first informed thy sight, and reason saw not till faith sprung to light.

John Dryden
Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov'd with such transcendent passion, I soar'd, at first, quite out of reason's view, And now am lost above it.

John Dryden
The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted.

John Dryden
The people have a right supreme
To make their kings, for Kings are made for them.
All Empire is no more than Pow'r in Trust,
Which when resum'd, can be no longer just.
Successionm for the general good design'd,
In its own wrong a Nation cannot bind.

John Dryden
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well; the chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which delight a reasonable reader.

John Dryden
One of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.

John Dryden
If we from wealth to poverty descend,
Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend.

John Dryden
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature's eye.

John Dryden
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.

John Dryden
The poorest of the sex have still an itch To know their fortunes, equal to the rich. The dairy-maid inquires, if she shall take The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.

John Dryden
Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.

John Dryden
The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.

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

John Dryden
We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.

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

John Dryden
Tis fate that flings the dice, and as she flings of Kings makes peasants, and of peasants Kings.

John Dryden
Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.

John Dryden
An ugly woman in a rich habit set out with jewels nothing can become.

John Dryden
One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.

John Dryden