John Dryden - Live Quotes

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Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Fops may have leave to level all they can;
As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

John Dryden
Time and death shall depart and say in flying
Love has found out a way to live, by dying.

John Dryden
Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age, When no man dies for love, but on the stage.

John Dryden
Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.

John Dryden
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.

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

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

John Dryden
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

John Dryden
Since ev'ry man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

John Dryden
Take not away the life you cannot give:
For all things have an equal right to live.

John Dryden
When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay.
To-morrow 's falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.

John Dryden
So, when the last and dreadful Hour
This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.

John Dryden
Endure the hardships of your present state,
Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.

John Dryden
In youth alone, unhappy mortals live;
But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive:
Discolour'd sickness, anxious labour, come,
And age, and death's inexorable doom.

John Dryden
Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

John Dryden
Gilbert shall live, till Load-stones cease to draw,
Or British Fleets the boundless Ocean awe.

John Dryden
Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound:
The woods, the fountains, and the flow'ry ground:
As you are beauteous, were you half so true,
Here could I live, and love, and die with only you.

John Dryden