John Dryden Quotes

Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck.

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

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

The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.

An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.

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

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

Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.

Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.

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

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

The Fates but only spin the coarser clue; The finest of the wool is left for you.

But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.

None but the brave deserve the fair.

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

Love is love's reward.

Repentance is but want of power to sin.

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

A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.

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.

Nature meant me A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove, Fond without art, and kind without deceit.

For those whom God to ruin has design'd, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.

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!

Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.

Griefs assured are felt before they come.

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

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

What passion cannot music raise and quell!

Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!

Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts.

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.

Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends.

Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.

Beware of the fury of the patient man.

Be slow to resolve, but quick in performance.

Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors.

Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.

Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.

It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence.

Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes; When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.

For all have not the gift of martyrdom.

A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

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.

The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind's great bribe.

A happy genius is the gift of nature.

Politicians neither love nor hate.

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.