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We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

John Dryden

Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.
JOHN DRYDEN

Best Kind Ourselves Steal
Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.
JOHN DRYDEN

Desire God Greatness Sin
A farce is that in poetry which grotesque (caricature) is in painting. The persons and actions of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false, that is, inconsistent with the characters of mankind; and grotesque painting is the just resemblance of this.
JOHN DRYDEN

Character Kind Man Natural Painting Person Poetry
Faith is to believe what you do not yet see: the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
JOHN DRYDEN

Believe Faith Grace Reward See Strength
If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, ’tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.
JOHN DRYDEN

Judgement People Thinking Understand Wrong
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
Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.
JOHN DRYDEN

Appetite Digestion Quick Yourself
If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!
JOHN DRYDEN

Evidence Passion Reason Rule Weakness
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.
JOHN DRYDEN

Better Health Himself Man Work
But love’s a malady without a cure.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cure Love
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Pearl Search
Time glides with undiscover’d haste; The future but a length behind the past.
JOHN DRYDEN

Discover Future Glide Haste Length Past
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Mindset Worst
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Elegant Flower Heaven Western
Griefs assured are felt before they come.
JOHN DRYDEN

Assurance Feeling Grief
They live too long who happiness outlive.
JOHN DRYDEN

Happiness Live

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

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We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

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Popular Authors

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