John Dryden Quotes
poet
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.
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.
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Love is love's reward.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
God never made His work for man to mend.
There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.
Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.
Dancing is the poetry of the foot.
Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.
Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.
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.
It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.
For they conquer who believe they can.
Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
What passions cannot music raise or quell?
Honor is but an empty bubble.
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.
But love's a malady without a cure.
Love is not in our choice but in our fate.
Even victors are by victories undone.
A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.
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.
Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today.
All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.
If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.
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.
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
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.
And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.
Self-defence is Nature's eldest law.
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!
Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
To die is landing on some distant shore.
War is the trade of Kings.
Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, but genius must be born; and never can be taught.
Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
All objects lose by too familiar a view.
They that possess the prince possess the laws.
And plenty makes us poor.
Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.
Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong.
He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.
Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.
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.
Successful crimes alone are justified.
Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
Repentance is but want of power to sin.
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.
The first is the law, the last prerogative.
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
All heiresses are beautiful.