Top 488 Quotes & Sayings by John Dryden - Page 5

Fortune confounds the wise, And when they least expect it turns the dice.

I am devilishly afraid, that's certain; but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant.

Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.

Present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

All delays are dangerous in war.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat. Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; 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. 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.

Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed: In God 'tisglory; and when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.

I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night.

In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land.

For lawful power is still superior found, When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.

What, start at this! when sixty years have spread. Their grey experience o'er thy hoary head? Is this the all observing age could gain? Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?

Pride - Lord of human kind

New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.

I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze.

The love of liberty with life is given, And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven.

The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.

These are the effects of doting age,--vain doubts and idle cares and over caution.

A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.

No king nor nation one moment can retard the appointed hour.

Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

Revealed religion first informed thy sight, and reason saw not till faith sprung to light.

We by art unteach what Nature taught.

The winds that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew; Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge Their straighten'd lungs or conscious of their charge.

Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.

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

If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!

Ever a glutton, at another's cost, But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.

Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.

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.

Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?

How easy 'tis, when Destiny proves kind, With full-spread sails to run before the wind!

Men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.

So the false spider, when her nets are spread, deep ambushed in her silent den does lie.

Shakespeare was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of the books to read nature; he looked inward, and found her there.

Sure there is none but fears a future state; And when the most obdurate swear they do not, Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.

Death only this mysterious truth unfolds, The mighty soul how small a body holds.

An ugly woman in a rich habit set out with jewels nothing can become.

How happy the lover, How easy his chain, How pleasing his pain, How sweet to discover He sighs not in vain.

To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

Merit challenges envy.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long: Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner. Fate seem'd 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.

Murder may pass unpunishd for a time, But tardy justice will oertake the crime.

All the learn'd are cowards by profession.

So softly death succeeded life in her, She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

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

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

The bravest men are subject most to chance.

An horrible stillness first invades our ear, And in that silence we the tempest fear.

Fortune's unjust; she ruins oft the brave, and him who should be victor, makes the slave.

Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus's blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure- Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject's sole prerogative.

If we from wealth to poverty descend, Want gives to know the flatterer from the friend.

Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.

Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck.