John Dryden - Wit Quotes

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Much malice mingled with a little wit
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.

John Dryden
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

John Dryden
Of these the false Achitophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst.
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.

John Dryden
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

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
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
Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.

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
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
One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.

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