God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDENThey, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.
More John Dryden Quotes
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Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate’s: Souls know no conquerors.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,–I mean good-nature,–are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.
JOHN DRYDEN -
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.
JOHN DRYDEN -
If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!
JOHN DRYDEN -
Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people’s wrongs his own.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.
JOHN DRYDEN -
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.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Repentance is but want of power to sin.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.
JOHN DRYDEN -
It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good.
JOHN DRYDEN