John Dryden Quotes

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

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

If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

All heiresses are beautiful.

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

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

All delays are dangerous in war.

The bravest men are subject most to chance.

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

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

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

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

All the learn'd are cowards by profession.

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

New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.

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

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

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

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

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

Interest makes all seem reason that leads to it.

The World to Bacon does not only owe it's present knowledge, but its future too.

I learn to pity woes so like my own.

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy, Thou tyrant of the mind!

Jealousy's a proof of love, But 'tis a weak and unavailing medicine; It puts out the disease and makes it show, But has no power to cure.

Second thoughts, they say, are best.

Repentance is the virtue of weak minds.

I have a soul that like an ample shield Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

Successful crimes alone are justified.

Virtue without success is a fair picture shown by an ill light; but lucky men are favorites of heaven; all own the chief, when fortune owns the cause.

Pleasure never comes sincere to man; but lent by heaven upon hard usury.

The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted.

That gloomy outside, like a rusty chest, contains the shoring treasure of a soul resolved and brave.

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

Ill fortune seldom comes alone.

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

The wretched have no friends.

My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.

Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.

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

He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master.

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

Maintain your post: That's all the fame you need; For 'tis impossible you should proceed.

Democracy is essentially anti-authoritarian--that is, it not only demands the right but imposes the responsibility of thinking for ourselves.