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John Dryden

17th-century English poet and playwright
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John Dryden (19 August 1631 {9 August O.S.} – 12 May 1700 {1 May O.S.}) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright. He was Poet Laureate, 1668–1689.

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.

Quotes

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Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
  • An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
    And in that silence we the tempest fear.
  • All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,
    The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
    The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat,
    And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat;
    Even Lust and Envy sleep.
  • By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,
    Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.
  • [T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.
  • To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,
    • Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
  • Their heavenly harps a lower strain began, and in soft music mourn the fall of man.
  • And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears, And music more melodious than the spheres.
  • All delays are dangerous in war.
    • Tyrannick Love (1669), Act I, scene i.
  • Pains of love be sweeter far
    Than all other pleasures are.
    • Tyrannick Love (1669), Act IV, scene i.
  • … not judging truth to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both according to interest.
    • "Plutarch's Lives," Vol 1, Barnes & Noble Inc., 2006, Lysander p. 646
    • Translation from Greek originalː "τὸ ἀληθὲς οὐ φύσει τοῦ ψεύδους κρεῖττον ἡγούμενος, ἀλλ' ἑκατέρου τῇ χρείᾳ τὴν τιμὴν ὁρίζων."
  • Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
    To be we know not what, we know not where.
    • Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.
  • When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
    Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
    Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.
    To-morrow 's falser than the former day;
    Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
    With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
    Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
    Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
    And from the dregs of life think to receive
    What the first sprightly running could not give.
    • Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.
  • 'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
    It pays our hopes with something still that's new.
    • Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.
 
If others in the same Glass better see
'Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:
For my Salvation must its Doom receive
Not from what others, but what I believe.
  • A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.
  • Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
    To lonely, weary, wandering travellers
    Is reason to the soul; and as on high
    Those rolling fires discover but the sky
    Not light us here, so reason's glimmering ray
    Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
    But guide us upward to a better day:
    And as those nightly tapers disappear
    When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,
    So pale grows reason at religion's sight,
    So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
  • More Safe, and much more modest 'tis, to say
    God wou'd not leave Mankind without a way:
    And that the Scriptures, though not every where
    Free from Corruption, or intire, or clear,
    Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, intire,
    In all things which our needfull Faith require.
    If others in the same Glass better see
    'Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:
    For my Salvation must its Doom receive
    Not from what others, but what I believe.
  • Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
    But good men starve for want of impudence.
    • Constantine the Great (1684), Epilogue.
  • Men met each other with erected look,
    The steps were higher that they took;
    Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,
    And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.
    • Threnodia Augustalis (1685), line 124-127.
  • Nay, tho' our Atoms shou'd revolve by chance,
    And matter leape into the former dance;
    Tho' time our Life and motion cou'd restore,
    And make our Bodies what they were before,
    What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring,
    The new made man wou'd be another thing;
    When once an interrupting pause is made,
    That individual Being is decay'd.
    We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
    In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
    Which to that other Mortal shall accrew,
    Whom of our Matter Time shall mould anew.
    • Sylvae (London, 1685), Translation of the Latter Part of the Third Book of Lucretius, "Against the Fear of Death", pp. 61–62.
  • Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
    • To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), line 15.
  • O gracious God! how far have we
    Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
    • To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), lines 56–57.
  • Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
    • To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), line 70.
 
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
  • Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
    To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
    Preventing angels met it half the way,
    And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
    • Britannia Rediviva (1688), line 1.
  • And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
    • Britannia Rediviva (1688), line 208.
  • Three poets, in three distant ages born,
    Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
    The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
    The next, in majesty; in both the last.
    The force of Nature could no further go.
    To make a third, she joined the former two.
    • Under Mr. Milton's Picture (1688).
  • This is the porcelain clay of humankind.
    • Don Sebastian (1690), Act I scene i.
  • I have a soul that like an ample shield
    Can take in all, and verge enough for more.
    • Don Sebastian (1690), Act I scene i.
  • A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.
  • Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.
  • The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine.
  • Fairest Isle, all isles excelling,
    Seat of pleasures, and of loves;
    Venus here will choose her dwelling,
    And forsake her Cyprian groves.
    • King Arthur (1691), Act II scene v, 'Song of Venus.
  • Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the cement of all societies.
    • The Character of Polybius (1692)
 
There is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place.
  • Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
    • Epistle to Congreve (1693), line 19.
  • Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
    • Epistle to Congreve (1693), line 60.
  • Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,
    Against your judgment, your departed friend!
    • Epistle to Congreve (1693), line 72.
  • How easie is it to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade, which yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickl'd while he is hurt in this manner, and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place.
    • A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693).
  • Look round the habitable world: how few
    Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
    • Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 1–2.
  • I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
    For every man's a fool to that degree:
    All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
    Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.
    • Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 156–159.
 
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
  • Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
    So great a poet and so good a friend.
    • Epistle to Peter Antony Motteux (1698), lines 54–55.
  • Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife.
    • Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700), line 18.
  • 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.
    • Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700), lines 92–95.
  • Ill habits gather by unseen degrees —
    As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV, The Worship of Aesculapius (1700), lines 155–156.
  • He was exhaled; his great Creator drew
    His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
    • On the Death of a Very Young Gentlemen (1700).
  • Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry.
    • Preface to Translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, in Sylvæ: or, The second part of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Mr. Dryden, third edition (London, 1702).
  • A Heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform.
    • The Works of Virgil translated into English verse by Mr. Dryden, Volume II (London, 1709), "Dedication", p. 213.
  • Here lies my wife:here let her lie!
    Now she's at rest, and so am I.
    • Epitaph, intended for his wife
  • It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ...But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.
    • Works of John Dryden (1803) as quoted by P. Fleury Mottelay in William Gilbert of Colchester (1893)
  • Mercy is Heaven’s own gift; nor can she find
    A throne so soft as in a woman’s mind.

The Conquest of Granada (1669-1670)

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  • I am as free as Nature first made man,
    Ere the base laws of servitude began    ,
    When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
    • Part 1, Act I, scene i.
  • Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
    But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.
    • Part 2, Act I, scene ii.
  • What precious drops are those
    Which silently each other's track pursue,
    Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
    • Part 2, Act III, scene i.
  • Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
    And they have kept it since by being dead.
    • Epilogue.

All for Love (1678)

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Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
  • What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
    As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
    All gaping for the carcase of a play!
    With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
    And follow dying poets by the scent.
    • Prologue
  • He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind;
    Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind.
    • Prologue
  • A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day;
    Like Hectors in at every petty fray.
    • Prologue
  • Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
    They've need to show that they can think at all;
    Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
    He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
    Fops may have leave to level all they can;
    As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
    Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
    We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.
    • Prologue
  • Give, you gods,
    Give to your boy, your Caesar,
    The rattle of a globe to play withal,
    This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
    I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
    • Act II, scene II
  • The wretched have no friends.
    • Act III, scene I
  • Men are but children of a larger growth;
    Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
    And full as craving, too, and full as vain.
    • Act IV, scene I
  • With how much ease believe we what we wish!
    • Cleopatra in Act IV, scene I

Œdipus (1679)

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Whatever is, is in its causes just.
  • Whatever is, is in its causes just.
    • Act III, scene i.
  • His hair just grizzled,
    As in a green old age.
    • Act III, scene i.
  • Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
    But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
    Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
    Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
    Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
    Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
    The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
    • Act IV, scene i.
  • She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
    Grows cold even in the summer of her age.
    • Act IV, scene i.

The Spanish Friar (1681)

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  • There is a pleasure sure
    In being mad which none but madmen know.
    • Act II, scene 1.
  • Lord of humankind.
    • Act II, scene 1.
  • Like a led victim, to my death I'll go,
    And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.
    • Act II, scene 1.
  • Second thoughts, they say, are best.
    • Act II, scene 2.
  • He's a sure card.
    • Act II, scene 2.
  • They say everything in the world is good for something.
    • Act III, scene 2.
  • As sure as a gun.
    • Act III, scene 2.
  • Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,
    Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.
    • Act V, scene 2.

Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

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Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 't was natural to please.
  • Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,
    In him alone 't was natural to please.
    • Pt. I line 27-28.
  • Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
    To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
    • Pt. I line 83-84.
  • Of these the false Achitophel was first,
    A name to all succeeding ages cursed.
    For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
    Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
    Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
    In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
    A fiery soul, which working out its way,
    Fretted the pygmy-body to decay:
    And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
    A daring pilot in extremity;
    Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
    He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
    Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
    Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
    And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
    • Pt. I, lines 150–164. Compare Aristotle, Problem, sect. 30: "No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness"; Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, 15: "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ" ("There is no great genius without a tincture of madness"); Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, epistle i. line 226: "What thin partitions sense from thought divide!".
  • A daring pilot in extremity;
    Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
    He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
    Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
    Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
    And thin partitions do their bounds divide    :
    Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
    Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
    Punish a body which he could not please;
    Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
    And all to leave, what with his toil he won
    To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
    Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
    And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
    • Pt. I, lines 159–172.
  • In friendship false, implacable in hate,
    Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
    • Pt. I, lines 173–174.
  • And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
    But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
    And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
    • Pt. I, lines 197–199. Compare Knolles, History (under a portrait of Mustapha I): "Greatnesse on Goodnesse loves to slide, not stand,/ And leaves, for Fortune’s ice, Vertue’s ferme land".
  • Auspicious Prince! at whose nativity
    Some royal planet rul'd the southern sky;
    Thy longing country's darling and desire;
    Their cloudy pillar, and their guardian fire:
    Their second Moses, whose extended wand
    Divides the seas, and shows the promis'd land:
    Whose dawning day, in very distant age,
    Has exercis'd the sacred prophet's rage:
    The people's pray'r, the glad diviner's theme,
    The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
    • Pt. I, lines 230–239.
  • Behold him setting in his western skies,
    The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.
    • Pt. I line 268.
  • His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim.
    • Pt. I line 357.
  • All empire is no more than power in trust.
    • Pt. I line 411.
  • Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.
    • Pt. I line 416.
  • Your case no tame expedients will afford,
    Resolve on death or conquest by the sword,
    Which for no less a stake than life you draw,
    And self-defence is Nature's eldest law.
    • Pt. I, lines 455–458.
  • But far more numerous was the herd of such,
    Who think too little, and who talk too much.
    • Pt. I, lines 532–533. Compare Matthew Prior, Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana, "They always talk who never think".
  • A man so various, that he seemed to be
    Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
    Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
    Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
    But, in the course of one revolving moon,
    Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
    • Pt. I, lines 545–550.
  • Railing and praising were his usual themes;
    And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
    So over violent, or over civil,
    That every man with him was God or devil.
    • Pt. I, lines 554–557.
  • Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;
    And peace itself is war in masquerade.
    • Pt. I, lines 750–751.
  • Nor is the people's judgment always true:
    The most may err as grossly as the few.
    • Pt. I, lines 781–782.
  • Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.
    • Pt. I, line 826.
  • Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet
    In his own worth.
    • Pt. I, lines 900–901.
  • Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
    • Pt. I, line 967.
 
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.
  • Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin’d:
    Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
    To make Examples of another Kind?
    Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
    Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
    How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
    Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.
    • Pt. I, line 999–1005. Compare Publius Syrus, Maxim 289, "Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia" ("An over-taxed patience gives way to fierce anger").
  • Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;
    Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
    Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in.
    Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
    And in one word, heroically mad.
    • Pt. II, line 413.
  • Railing in other men may be a crime,
    But ought to pass for mere instinct in him:
    Instinct he follows and no further knows,
    For to write verse with him is to transpose.
    • Pt. II, line 440.
  • With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
    For every inch that is not fool is rogue :
    A monstrous mass of fuul corrupted matter,
    As all the devils had spew'd to make the baiter.
    When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
    He curses God, but God before curst him ;
    And, if man could have reason, none has more.
    That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
    • Pt. II, lines 462–469.

Mac Flecknoe (1682)

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  • All human things are subject to decay,
    And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
    • l. 1–2.
  • The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
    But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
    Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
    Strike through and make a lucid interval;
    But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
    His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
    • l. 19–24.
  • Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
    Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
    There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
    And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
    • l. 205–208.

Imitation of Horace (1685)

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Main article: Imitation of Horace
  • 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.
    • Book III, Ode 29, lines 65–68.
  • 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.
    • Book III, Ode 29, lines 69–72.
  • I can enjoy her while she's kind;
    But when she dances in the wind,
    And shakes the wings and will not stay,
    I puff the prostitute away:
    The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd:
    Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
    And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
    • On Fortune; Book III, Ode 29, lines 81–87.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)

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What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
  • From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
    This universal frame began:
    When nature underneath a heap
    Of jarring atoms lay,
    And could not heave her head,
    The tuneful voice was heard from high,
    'Arise, ye more than dead!'
    Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
    In order to their stations leap,
    And Music's power obey.
    From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
    This universal frame began:
    From harmony to harmony
    Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
    The diapason closing full in Man.
    • St. 1.
  • What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
    • St. 2.
  • The trumpet's loud clangor
    Excites us to arms.
    • St. 3.
  • The soft complaining flute,
    In dying notes, discovers
    The woes of hopeless lovers.
    • St. 4.
  • So, when the last and dreadful Hour
    This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
    The trumpet shall be heard on high,
    The dead shall live, the living die,
    And musick shall untune the Sky.
    • Grand Chorus.

The Hind and the Panther (1687)

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  • She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
    • Pt. I, line 4.
  • And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
    • Pt. I, line 8.
  • For truth has such a face and such a mien
    As to be loved needs only to be seen.
    • Pt. I, lines 33–34.
  • Of all the tyrannies on human kind
    The worst is that which persecutes the mind.
    • Pt. I, lines 239–240.
  • Reason to rule, mercy to forgive:
    The first is law, the last prerogative.
    • Pt. I, lines 261-262.
  • And kind as kings upon their coronation day.
    • Pt. I, line 271.
  • Than a successive title long and dark,
    Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.
    • Pt 1, line 301.
  • Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.
    • Pt. I, line 343.
  • As long as words a different sense will bear,
    And each may be his own interpreter,
    Our airy faith will no foundation find;
    The word's a weathercock for every wind.
    • Pt. I, lines 462–465.
  • Not only hating David, but the king.
    • Pt. I, line 512.
  • A man so various, that he seem’d to be
    Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
    Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
    Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
    But in the course of one revolving moon
    Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
    • Pt. I, line 545. Compare Juvenal, Satire III, line 76: "Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,/Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit" ("Grammarian, orator, geometrician; painter, gymnastic teacher, physician; fortune-teller, rope-dancer, conjurer,—he knew everything").
  • So over violent, or over civil,
    That every man with him was God or Devil.
    • Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 557.
  • His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.
    • Pt. I, line 645. Compare: Julius Hare, Guesses at Truth: "A Christian is God Almighty’s gentleman"; Edward Young, Night Thoughts, Night iv, line 788, "A Christian is the highest style of man".
  • Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense
    Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
    • Pt. I, line 868.
  • All have not the gift of martyrdom.
    • Pt. II, line 59.
  • War seldom enters but where wealth allures.
    • Pt. II, line 706.
  • Jealousy, the jaundice of the soul.
    • Pt. III, line 73.
  • For present joys are more to flesh and blood
    Than a dull prospect of a distant good.
    • Pt. III, lines 364–365.
  • T' abhor the makers, and their laws approve,
    Is to hate traitors and the treason love.
    • Pt. III, lines 706–707.
  • Secret guilt by silence is betrayed.
    • Pt. III, line 763.
  • Possess your soul with patience.
    • Pt. III, line 839.
  • For those whom God to ruin has design'd,
    He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
    • Pt. III, line 2387.

Alexander’s Feast (1697)

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  • Happy, happy, happy pair!
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave deserves the fair.
    • l. 12–15.
  • With ravished ears
    The monarch hears;
    Assumes the god,
    Affects the nod,
    And seems to shake the spheres.
    • l. 37–41.
  • Sound the trumpets; beat the drums...
    Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
    • l. 50–51.
  • Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
    • l. 54.
  • Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;
    Rich the treasure;
    Sweet the pleasure;
    Sweet is pleasure after pain.
    • l. 57–60.
  • Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
    Fought all his battles o'er again;
    And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
    • l. 66–70.
  • Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
    Fallen from his high estate,
    And welt'ring in his blood;
    Deserted, at his utmost need,
    By those his former bounty fed,
    On the bare earth exposed he lies,
    With not a friend to close his eyes.
    • l. 77–83.
  • For pity melts the mind to love.
    • l. 96.
  • Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
    Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
    War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
    Honor but an empty bubble;
    Never ending, still beginning,
    Fighting still, and still destroying.
    If all the world be worth thy winning.
    Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
    Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,
    Take the good the gods provide thee.
    • l. 97–106.
  • Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
    • l. 120.
  • And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.
    • l. 154.
  • Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
    And sounding lyre,
    Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
    • l. 158–159.
  • Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
    Or both divide the crown;
    He rais’d a mortal to the skies;
    She drew an angel down.
    • l. 167–170.

The Works of Virgil (1697)

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Main article: The Works of Virgil (John Dryden)
 
Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.
  • Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.
    • Pastoral X, lines 98–99.
  • My next desire is, void of care and strife,
    To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:
    A country cottage near a crystal flood,
    A winding valley, and a lofty wood.
    • Georgic II, lines 688–691.
  • Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.
    • Georgic III, lines 380.
  • Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,
    And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
    Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore;
    Long labours both by sea and land he bore.
    • Aeneis, Book I, lines 1–4.
  • Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
    Or exercise their spite in human woe?
    • Aeneis, Book I, lines 17–18.
 
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.
  • Endure the hardships of your present state,
    Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.
    • Aeneis, Book I, lines 289–290.
  • Like you, an alien in a land unknown,
    I learn to pity woes so like my own.
    • Aeneis, Book I, lines 889–890.
  • The gates of hell are open night and day;
    Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
    But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
    In this the task and mighty labor lies.
    • Aeneis, Book VI, lines 192–195.
  • Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,
    Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
    Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
    The mystic wonders of your silent state!
    • Aeneis, Book VI, lines 374–377.
  • Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
    • Aeneis, Book VI, line 512.

Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

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  • I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet.
 
Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
  • Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.
    • Preface to the Fables.
  • A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.
    • Preface to the Fables.
  • If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?
    • Preface to the Fables.
  • 'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our fore-fathers and great-grandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are call'd by other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.
    • Preface to the Fables.
  • Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,
    And none can boast sincere felicity,
    With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
    Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
    Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;
    The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
    • Palamon and Arcite.
  • 'Twas now the month in which the world began
    (If March beheld the first created man):
    And since the vernal equinox, the Sun,
    In Aries, twelve degrees, or more, had run;
    When casting up his eyes against the light,
    Both month, and day, and hour, he measur'd right;
    And told more truly than th' Ephemeris:
    For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
    Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast,
    His second crowing the third hour confess'd.
    • The Cock and the Fox line 445 - 457.
  • The wrath of Peleus' son, O Muse, resound;
    Whose dire effects the Grecian army found,
    And many a hero, king, and hardy knight,
    Were sent, in early youth, to shades of night.

The Secular Masque (1700)

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  • A very merry, dancing, drinking,
    Laughing, quaffing, and unthinkable time.
    • Lines 38–39.
  • The sword within the scabbard keep,
    And let mankind agree.
    • Lines 61–62.
  • Calms appear, when storms are past,
    Love will have its hour at last.
    • Lines 72–73.
  • Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.
    • Line 82.
  • All, all of a piece throughout:
    Thy chase had a beast in view;
    Thy wars brought nothing about;
    Thy lovers were all untrue.
    'Tis well an old age is out,
    And time to begin a new.
    • Lines 86–91.

Cymon and Iphigenia

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  • Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
    The power of beauty I remember yet.
    • Lines 1–2.
  • When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!
    • Line 41.
  • He trudged along unknowing what he sought,
    And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
    • Lines 84-85.
  • The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
    And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
    • Line 107.
  • Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
    Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
    • Line 133.
  • She hugged the offender, and forgave the offense:
    Sex to the last.
    • Lines 367–368.
  • And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
    Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
    In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
    Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
    And ever but in times of need at hand.
    • Line 400.
  • Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
    Then hasten to be drunk — the business of the day.
    • Lines 407–408.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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Quotes reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
  • Madam me no madam.
    • The Wild Gallant, act ii. scene. 2.
  • Midas me no midas.
    • The Wild Gallant, act ii. scene. 1.
  • Above any Greek or Roman name.
    • Upon the Death of Lord Hastings, line 76. Compare: "Above all Greek, above all Roman fame"; Alexander Pope, Epistle I, Book 2, line 26.
  • And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,
    Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.
    • Annus Mirabilis, Stanza 39.
  • Wit will shine
    Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
    • To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, line 15.
  • So softly death succeeded life in her,
    She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
    • Eleonora, Line 315.
  • Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
    And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
    • Palamon and Arcite, book ii, line 758.
  • And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd
    For one fair female, lost him half the kind.
    • Theodore and Honoria, line 227.
  • Happy who in his verse can gently steer
    From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.
    • The Art of Poetry, canto i, line 75.
  • And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care
    Turn'd by a gentle fire and roasted rare.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book viii. Baucis and Philemon, Line 97.
  • She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
    Can draw you to her with a single hair.
    • Persius, Satire v, line 246.
  • 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.
    • Mariage à la Mode, Act ii, scene 1.
  • Thespis, the first professor of our art,
    At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
    • Prologue to Lee's Sophonisba.
  • Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
    • The Maiden Queen, Act i, scene 2.
  • Burn daylight.
    • The Maiden Queen, Act ii, scene 1.
  • I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.
    • The Maiden Queen, Act iii, scene 1.
  • But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
    Within that circle none durst walk but he.
    • The Tempest, Prologue.

Quotes about Dryden

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What is there in Dryden? Much, but above all this: he is the most masculine of our poets; his style and his rhythms lay the strongest stress of all our literature on the naked thew and sinew of the English language. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition. ~ Samuel Johnson
 
Dryden taught to join / The varying verse, the full resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine. ~ Alexander Pope
  • He had made the language his study; and though he wrote hastily, and often incorrectly, and his style is not free from faults, yet there is a richness in his diction, a copiousness, ease, and variety in his expression, which has not been surpassed by any who have come after him.
    • Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Vol. I (1783), Lecture XVIII, p. 378.
  • Here let me bend, great Dryden, at thy shrine,
    Thou dearest name to all the tuneful nine.
    What if some dull lines in cold order creep,
    And with his theme the poet seems to sleep?
    Still, when his subject rises proud to view,
    With equal strength the poet rises too:
    With strong invention, noblest vigour fraught,
    Thought still springs up and rises out of thought;
    Numbers ennobling numbers in their course,
    In varied sweetness flow, in varied force;
    The powers of genius and of judgment join,
    And the whole Art of Poetry is thine.
  • What is there in Dryden? Much, but above all this: he is the most masculine of our poets; his style and his rhythms lay the strongest stress of all our literature on the naked thew and sinew of the English language.
  • Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition.
  • None of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous: what is little is gay; what is great is splendid. [...] Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though since his earlier works more than a century has passed they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.
    • Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Dryden".
  • Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. [...] it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble.
    • Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Dryden".
  • The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.
    • Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Pope".
  • Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave.
    • Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Pope".
  •  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  Dryden taught to join
    The varying verse, the full resounding line,
    The long majestic march, and energy divine.
    • Alexander Pope, The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated (1737), p. 16.
  • I learned versification chiefly from Dryden's works, who has improved it much beyond any of our former poets, and would probably have brought it to its perfection, had not he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste.
  • Dryden has neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity: where his language is poetically impassioned it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects; such as the follies, vice, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals.
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