Top 488 Quotes & Sayings by John Dryden - Page 3

We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.

Since every 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 the' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

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.

Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh.

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.

Politicians neither love nor hate.

He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow's falser than the former day.

A narrow mind begets obstinacy; we do not easily believe what we cannot see.

Some of our philosophizing divines have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that by their force mankind has been able to find out God.

The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.

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

Trust on and think To-morrow 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.

Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad.

Time glides with undiscover'd haste; The future but a length behind the past.

Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.

All flowers will droop in the absence of the sun that waked their sweets.

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.

We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.

Dreams are but interludes that fancy makes... Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.

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

Repartee is the soul of conversation.

Treason is greatest where trust is greatest.

The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.

They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.

Griefs assured are felt before they come.

Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts.

There is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.

Parting is worse than death; it is death of love!

For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.

No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.

Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave deserves the fair.

What passion cannot music raise and quell!

Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.

Pity melts the mind to love.

Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.

Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.

They say everything in the world is good for something.

He trudged along unknowing what he sought, And whistled as he went, for want of thought.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother ten, Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.

Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.

Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.

Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer: Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.

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

Here lies my wife: here let her lie! Now she's at rest, and so am I.

What precious drops are those, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their faint dew?

All empire is no more than power in trust.

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.

Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.

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.

If thou dost still retain the same ill habits, the same follies, too, still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.

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.

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.

When a man's life is under debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

A good conscience is a port which is landlocked on every side, where no winds can possibly invade. There a man may not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed waters.

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

Secret guilt is by silence revealed.

Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.