John Dryden - Time Quotes

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In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin.

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

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

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
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
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

John Dryden
The famous rules, which the French call Des Trois Unitez, or, the Three Unities, which ought to be observed in every regular play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.

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
And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever but in times of need at hand.

John Dryden
Nay, tho' our Atoms shou'd revolve by chance,
And matter leape into the former dance;
Tho' time our Life and motion cou'd restore,
And make our Bodies what they were before,
What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring,
The new made man wou'd be another thing;
When once an interrupting pause is made,
That individual Being is decay'd.
We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
Which to that other Mortal shall accrew,
Whom of our Matter Time shall mould anew.

John Dryden
And write whatever Time shall bring to pass
With pens of adamant on plates of brass.

John Dryden
It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more.... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.

John Dryden
Love and Time with reverence use,
Treat them like a parting friend:
Nor the golden gifts refuse
Which in youth sincere they send:
For each year their price is more,
And they less simple than before.

John Dryden
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.

John Dryden