John Dryden - Nature Quotes

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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
When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.

John Dryden
Government itself at length must fall To nature's state, where all have right to all.

John Dryden
Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

John Dryden
That, if the Gentiles, (whom no Law inspir'd,)
By Nature did what was by Law requir'd;
They, who the written Rule and never known,
Were to themselves both Rule and Law alone:
To Natures plain Indictment they shall plead;
And, by their Conscience, be condemn'd or freed.

John Dryden
Happy the man, who studying Nature's laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause — His mind, possessing in a quiet state, Fearless of fortune and resigned to fate.

John Dryden
But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.

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

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

John Dryden
The trees are cloth'd with leaves, the fields with grass;
The blossoms blow; the birds on bushes sing;
And Nature has accomplish'd all the spring.

John Dryden
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

John Dryden
He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.... He was naturally learn'd; 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 in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

John Dryden
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

John Dryden
For thee, sweet month; the groves green liveries wear.
If not the first, the fairest of the year;
For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours,
And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers.
When thy short reign is past, the feverish sun
The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on.

John Dryden
He was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.

John Dryden
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

John Dryden
Mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.

John Dryden
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go.
To make a third, she joined the former two.

John Dryden
Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.

John Dryden
By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.

John Dryden
Your case no tame expedients will afford,
Resolve on death or conquest by the sword,
Which for no less a stake than life you draw,
And self-defence is Nature's eldest law.

John Dryden