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Quotes by John Dryden

A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.
– John Dryden
All objects lose by too familiar a view.
– John Dryden
And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.
– John Dryden
And plenty makes us poor.
– John Dryden
Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
– John Dryden
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.
– 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
Beware the fury of a patient man.
– John Dryden
Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.
– 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
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure.
– 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
For all have not the gift of martyrdom.
– John Dryden
For they conquer who believe they can.
– 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
God never made His work for man to mend.
– John Dryden
Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
– John Dryden
He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
– John Dryden
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
– John Dryden
Honor is but an empty bubble.
– John Dryden
If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.
– John Dryden
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
– John Dryden
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
– John Dryden
It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.
– 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
Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
– John Dryden
Love is love's reward.
– John Dryden
Nature meant me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit.
– John Dryden
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
– John Dryden
Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.
– John Dryden
Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.
– John Dryden
Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
– John Dryden
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
– John Dryden
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.
– John Dryden
Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!
– John Dryden
Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
– John Dryden
So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.
– John Dryden
Successful crimes alone are justified.
– John Dryden
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
– John Dryden
The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
– John Dryden
There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.
– John Dryden
They that possess the prince possess the laws.
– John Dryden
Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!
– John Dryden
Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, but genius must be born; and never can be taught.
– John Dryden
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
– John Dryden
What passions cannot music raise or quell?
– John Dryden
When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.
– John Dryden
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
– John Dryden
Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
– John Dryden
You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.
– John Dryden
Reason to rule but mercy to forgive:
The first is the law, the last prerogative.
– John Dryden
The people have a right supreme
To make their kings, for Kings are made for them.
All Empire is no more than Pow'r in Trust,
Which when resum'd, can be no longer just.
Successionm for the general good design'd,
In its own wrong a Nation cannot bind.
– John Dryden
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey;
This Flecknoe found, who like Augustus young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.
– John Dryden
Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.
– John Dryden
But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little and who talk too much.
– John Dryden
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
– John Dryden
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
– John Dryden
The conscience of a people is their power.
– John Dryden
They think to little who talk to much.
– John Dryden
We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.
– John Dryden
War is the trade of Kings.
– John Dryden
Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.
– John Dryden
Forgiveness to the injured does belong but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong.
– John Dryden
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
– John Dryden
Death in itself is nothing but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.
– John Dryden
Dancing is the poetry of the foot.
– John Dryden
But love's a malady without a cure.
– John Dryden