John Dryden Quotes

344 Sourced Quotes

With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek; And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek: Of these, my barbers take a costly care.

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

John Dryden
For granting we have sinned, and that the offence
Of man is made against Omnipotence,
Some price that bears proportion must be paid,
And infinite with infinite be weighed.

John Dryden
May, tho' our atoms should resolve by chance.

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

John Dryden
'Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

John Dryden
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.

John Dryden
Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.

John Dryden
Jealousy's a proof of love, But 'tis a weak and unavailing medicine; It puts out the disease and makes it show, But has no power to cure.

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

John Dryden
Are scatter'd from their heap, and puff'd away.

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

John Dryden
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

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

John Dryden
Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.

John Dryden
As when the dove returning bore the mark Of earth restored to the long labouring ark; The relics of mankind, secure at rest, Oped every window to receive the guest, And the fair bearer of the message bless'd.

John Dryden
To be the child of chance, and not of care, No atoms casually together hurl'd.

John Dryden
So the false spider, when her nets are spread, deep ambushed in her silent den does lie.

John Dryden
Luxurious kings are to their people lost,
They live like drones, upon the public cost.

John Dryden
Fortune's unjust; she ruins oft the brave, and him who should be victor, makes the slave.

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

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

John Dryden
Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown, A flaw is in thy ill-bak'd vessel found; 'Tis hollow, and returns a jarring sound, Yet thy moist clay is pliant to command, Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand: Now take the mould; now bend thy mind to feel The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.

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

John Dryden
Presence of mind and courage in distress,
Are more than arrives to procure success?

John Dryden
The province of the soul is large enough to fill up every cranny of your time, and leave you much to answer for if one wretch be damned by your neglect.

John Dryden
The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.

John Dryden
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.

John Dryden
While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.

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

John Dryden