John Dryden Quotes & Sayings

The fortitude of a Christian consists in patience, not in enterprises which the poets call heroic, and which are commonly the effects of interest, pride and worldly honor. — John Dryden

As one that neither seeks, nor shuns his foe. — John Dryden

To take up half on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith but bungling bigotry. — John Dryden

For all have not the gift of martyrdom. — John Dryden

A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pygmy-body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity; Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms. — John Dryden

Reason saw not, till Faith sprung the Light. — John Dryden

They say everything in the world is good for something. — John Dryden

Woman's honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil. — John Dryden

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

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. — John Dryden

Beauty is nothing else but a just accord and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution. — John Dryden

Among our crimes oblivion may be set. — John Dryden

Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took; Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd. — John Dryden

I never saw any good that came of telling truth. — John Dryden

To breed up the son to common sense is evermore the parent's least expense. — John Dryden

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

A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests. — John Dryden

If you have lived, take thankfully the past. Make, as you can, the sweet remembrance last. — John Dryden

You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water. — John Dryden

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy, Thou tyrant of the mind! — John Dryden

Better one suffer than a nation grieve. — John Dryden

Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne. — John Dryden

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows. — John Dryden

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

Who thinks all Science, as all Virtue, vain; Who counts Geometry and numbers Toys ... — John Dryden

My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. — John Dryden

Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence. — John Dryden

Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov'd with such transcendent passion, I soar'd, at first, quite out of reason's view, And now am lost above it. — John Dryden

For my part, I can compare her (a gossip) to nothing but the sun; for, like him, she knows no rest, nor ever sets in one place but to rise in another. — John Dryden

words are but pictures of our thoughts — John Dryden

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun. — John Dryden

Music, Music for a while Shall all your cares beguile. Alexander's Feast — John Dryden

A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; Like Hectors in at every petty fray. — John Dryden

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. — John Dryden

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind! — John Dryden

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. — 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

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

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

For age but tastes of pleasures youth devours. — John Dryden

With how much ease believe we what we wish! — John Dryden

All habits gather by unseen degrees. — John Dryden

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

For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me. — John Dryden

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey. — John Dryden

I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language. — John Dryden

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

Farewell, ungrateful traitor,
Farewell, my perjured swain;
Let never injured creature
Believe a man again.
The pleasure of possessing
Surpasses all expressing,
But 'tis too short a blessing,
And love too long a pain.

'Tis easy to deceive us
In pity of your pain;
But when we love you leave us
To rail at you in vain.
Before we have descried it
There is no bliss beside it,
But she that once has tried it
Will never love again.

The passion we pretended
Was only to obtain,
But when the charm is ended
The charmer you disdain.
Your love by ours we measure
Till we have lost our treasure,
But dying is a pleasure
When living is a pain. — John Dryden

If others in the same Glass better see
'Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:
For my Salvation must its Doom receive
Not from what others, but what I believe. — John Dryden

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. — John Dryden

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue. — John Dryden

There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally consists that beauty which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his, I must once again say, is never to be copied; and since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation. — John Dryden

Desire of greatness is a godlike sin. — John Dryden

Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres. — John Dryden

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

Restless at home, and ever prone to range. — John Dryden

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

Good sense and good nature are never separated; and good nature is the product of right reason. — John Dryden

The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race. — John Dryden

Having mourned your sin, for outward Eden lost, find paradise within. — John Dryden

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

By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man. — John Dryden

In God 'tis glory: And when men aspire,
'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire. — John Dryden

Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh. — John Dryden

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

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled 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 possesst. — John Dryden

It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. — John Dryden

War is a trade of kings. — John Dryden

Is it not evident, in these last hundred years (when the Study of Philosophy has been the business of all the Virtuosi in Christendome) that almost a new Nature has been revealed to us? that more errours of the School have been detected, more useful Experiments in Philosophy have been made, more Noble Secrets in Opticks, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, discover'd, than in all those credulous and doting Ages from Aristotle to us? So true it is that nothing spreads more fast than Science, when rightly and generally cultivated. — John Dryden

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction. — John Dryden

Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son. — John Dryden

Where'e're I go, my Soul shall stay with thee:
'Tis but my Shadow I take away ... — John Dryden

Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints. — John Dryden

There is a proud modesty in merit. — John Dryden

Bets at first were fool-traps, where the wise like spiders lay in ambush for the flies. — John Dryden

Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade. — John Dryden

The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one. — John Dryden

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

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise! — John Dryden

Ill fortune seldom comes alone. — John Dryden

To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free,
These are imperial arts. — John Dryden

Dim as the borrowed beams of moons and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travelers,
Is Reason to the soul; and, as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day. — John Dryden

None but the brave deserve the fair. — John Dryden

Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me. — John Dryden

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

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid. — John Dryden

For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before,
That change they covet makes them suffer more.
All other errors but disturb a state;
But innovation is the blow of fate. — John Dryden

Secret guilt is by silence revealed. — John Dryden

The longest tyranny that ever sway'd
Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle],
And made his torch their universal light.
So truth, while only one suppli'd the state,
Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate. — John Dryden

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace. — John Dryden

He wants worth who dares not praise a foe. — John Dryden

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

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead. — John Dryden

Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours. — John Dryden

The winds are out of breath. — John Dryden

The perverseness of my fate is such that he's not mine because he's mine too much. — John Dryden

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

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong. — John Dryden

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

[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unitez , or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action. — John Dryden