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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.

John Dryden

Those who write ill, and they who ne’er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.
JOHN DRYDEN

Criticism Revenge Writing
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
JOHN DRYDEN

Face Need See Truth
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
JOHN DRYDEN

Absence Age Love Time
None are so busy as the fool and the knave.
JOHN DRYDEN

Busy Fools
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
JOHN DRYDEN

Author Himself Poet Theft Victory
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cheating Favor Fools Hope Life
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Bold Goodness Starve
For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.
JOHN DRYDEN

Children Edge Fools Secret Tools
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
JOHN DRYDEN

Degree River Sea
Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fly Joy Youth
Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.
JOHN DRYDEN

Best Give Up Knowledge Nature Production True
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Elegant Flower Heaven Western
The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind’s great bribe.
JOHN DRYDEN

Act Generous Greatness Pleasure Secret
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.
JOHN DRYDEN

Hope Life Live Pleasure Run Thinking
Take not away the life you cannot give: For all things have an equal right to live.
JOHN DRYDEN

Equality Life Live Right
Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.
JOHN DRYDEN

Hold Last Sweet

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Dryden Quotes