John Dryden Quotes

344 Sourced Quotes

My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley, and a lofty wood.

John Dryden
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore;
Long labours both by sea and land he bore.

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

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

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

John Dryden
The 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
What precious drops are those
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

John Dryden
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.

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

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

John Dryden
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

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

John Dryden
Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;
Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in.
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And in one word, heroically mad.

John Dryden
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late:
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

John Dryden
All, all of a piece throughout:
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.
'Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.

John Dryden
Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.

John Dryden
Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
So great a poet and so good a friend.

John Dryden
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.

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 liv'd today.

John Dryden
Can flowers but droop in absence of the sun,
Which waked their sweets?

John Dryden
For present joys are more to flesh and blood
Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

John Dryden
He needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature: he looked inwards, and found her there…He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great.
On shakespeare

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

John Dryden
I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd:
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
On Fortune

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

John Dryden
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail:
But common interest always will prevail:
And pity never ceases to be shown
To him, who makes the people's wrongs his own.

John Dryden
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.

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

John Dryden
'Twas now the month in which the world began
(If March beheld the first created man):
And since the vernal equinox, the Sun,
In Aries, twelve degrees, or more, had run;
When casting up his eyes against the light,
Both month, and day, and hour, he measur'd right;
And told more truly than th' Ephemeris:
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast,
His second crowing the third hour confess'd.

John Dryden
I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze.

John Dryden