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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

No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.
JOHN DRYDEN

Block Government Time
But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.
JOHN DRYDEN

Desire Hands Nature Sick Sin
War is the trade of kings.
JOHN DRYDEN

King One Liner Trade War
All authors to their own defects are blind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Author Blind Defect
So the false spider, when her nets are spread, deep ambushed in her silent den does lie.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fake Lying Silence
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature’s eye.
JOHN DRYDEN

Eyes Heaven Nature
Virtue is her own reward.
JOHN DRYDEN

One Liner Reward Virtue
All flowers will droop in the absence of the sun that waked their sweets.
JOHN DRYDEN

Absence Flower Sun Sweet Wake Up
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
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fools One Liner Patriot
Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.
JOHN DRYDEN

Claim Grave Rich Slave
Self-defense is Nature’s eldest law.
JOHN DRYDEN

Defense Law Nature
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.
JOHN DRYDEN

Glitter Gold
What precious drops are those, Which silently each other’s track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their faint dew?
JOHN DRYDEN

Dew Precious Pursue Track Young
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Kind Man Vice Virtue
Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.
JOHN DRYDEN

Authors Enthusiasm Expectation Truth
Secret guilt is by silence revealed.
JOHN DRYDEN

Guilty Reveal Secret Silence
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Mindset Worst
They think too little who talk too much.
JOHN DRYDEN

Talk Thinking
To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
JOHN DRYDEN

Common Death Devil Evil
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cheap Death Fame
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
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
Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject’s sole prerogative.
JOHN DRYDEN

Freedom Subject Thrive
Merit challenges envy.
JOHN DRYDEN

Advantage Jealous One Liner
And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fragile Love Mindset
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.
JOHN DRYDEN

Eyes Feeling Ourselves Soul Tender Togetherness Touch

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Dryden Quotes