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John Dryden Quotes - Page 4

All Quotes Age Anger Art Beauty Bravery Character Children Confidence Conscience Country Crime Criticism Death Democracy Design Desire Devil Dying Evil Faith Fame Fate Fear Fighting Forgiveness Freedom Genius Giving Goodness Grace Guilt Happiness Harmony Heart Heaven Home Honor Imagination Imitation Inspirational Journey Joy Judging Judgment Language Learning Liberty Life Literature Love Lying Madness Mankind Music Nature Pain Painting Passion Past Peace Perfection Pleasure Poetry Poverty Power Praise Pride Rage Revenge Running Satire Science Silence Sin Son Sorrow Soul Study Suffering Time Today Trade Truth Understanding Virtue War Water Wife Wit Writing Youth

None but the brave deserve the fair.

None but the brave deserve the fair.

Brave, Bravery, Fairs

Alexander's Feast l. 7 (1697)

All authors to their own defects are blind.

Blind, Authorship, Defects

John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author”, p.211

Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,--I mean good-nature,--are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.

Good Life, Mean, Use

John Dryden (1868). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden: With Life and Critical Dissertation”, p.185

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.

Life, Kindness, Keys

'All for Love' (1678) act 5, sc. 1 (of Love)

Take not away the life you cannot give: For all things have an equal right to live.

Life, Giving, Equal

John Dryden (1808). “The Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Illustrated with Notes, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory, and a Life of the Author”, p.227

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

Patriotic, Patriotism, Fool

'Absalom and Achitophel' (1681) pt. 1, l. 968

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Inspirational, Life, Being Happy

Imitation of Horace bk. 3, ode 29, l. 65 (1685)

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

Men, Long, Judging

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

Wise, Fitness, Work

Epistle 'To my honoured kinsman John Driden' l. 92

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.

Imagination, Soul, Enthusiasm

John Dryden (1968). “Saggi critici”

For age but tastes of pleasures youth devours.

Age, Taste, Youth

John Dryden (1853). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden. With Illustrations by John Franklin”, p.260

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

Book, Inward, Found

1668 An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared'.

For all the happiness mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.

Happiness, Pain, Gains

'The Indian Emperor' (1665) act 4, sc. 1

The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature's eye.

Nature, Eye, Science

John Dryden, Paul Hammond, David Hopkins (1995). “The Poems of John Dryden: 1693-1696”, p.302, Pearson Education

Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.

I Miss You, Missing You, Long Distance Relationship

John Dryden (1762). “The Dramatick Works of John Dryden, Esq: In Six Volumes”, p.196

Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.

Truth, Understanding, Enthusiasm

John Dryden, Edmond Malone (1800). “The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected ...”, p.349

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

Life, Cheating, People

Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.

Pain, Long, Use

John Dryden (1808). “The Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes”, p.123

A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.

Numbness, Lazy, Mind

John Dryden, C. B., Esquire Charles BATHURST (1852). “Selections from the poetry of Dryden, including his plays and translations. [The editor's preface signed: C. B., i.e. Charles Bathurst.]”, p.128

Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Eye, Soul, Spiders

John Dryden (2014). “Marriage A-La-Mode”, p.47, A&C Black

Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

Art, Giving, Painting

John Dryden, John Mitford (1836). “The Works of John Dryden: In Verse and Prose, with a Life”, p.332

Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.

Gratitude, Grateful, Errors

Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Rain, Fate, Past

John Dryden (1808). “The Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Illustrated with Notes, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory, and a Life of the Author”, p.349

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.

Men, Wind, Water

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

Men, Understanding, Firsts

1677 'The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Heroic Licence', an essay prefacing State of Innocence, a libretto based on Paradise Lost.

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