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Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

John Dryden

Time and death shall depart and say in flying Love has found out a way to live, by dying.
JOHN DRYDEN

Death Finding Love Time Way
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
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
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.
JOHN DRYDEN

Goodness Ignorance Nature Reason Right World
There is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.
JOHN DRYDEN

Known Mad Pleasure
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Bold Goodness Starve
They that possess the prince possess the laws.
JOHN DRYDEN

Law Possession Prince
For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.
JOHN DRYDEN

Children Edge Fools Secret Tools
Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Loss See Vice
Seas are the fields of combat for the winds; but when they sweep along some flowery coast, their wings move mildly, and their rage is lost.
JOHN DRYDEN

Lost Mild Rage Sea Wind
Confidence is the feeling we have before knowing all the facts.
JOHN DRYDEN

Confidence Fact Known
There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.
JOHN DRYDEN

Gift Modesty Proud Time
Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
JOHN DRYDEN

Race Run Swift Time
Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.
JOHN DRYDEN

Love Pain Pleasure
Love and Time with reverence use, Treat them like a parting friend: Nor the golden gifts refuse Which in youth sincere they send: For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before.
JOHN DRYDEN

Friendship Love Price Time Treat
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
JOHN DRYDEN

Grace Strength
Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fly Joy Youth
Pity melts the mind to love.
JOHN DRYDEN

Love Mindset Pity
All objects lose by too familiar a view.
JOHN DRYDEN

Familiar Lose Object View
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

Beautiful Language Oneself
Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.
JOHN DRYDEN

Enemy Forgiveness Greatness Injury Power Soul Time
Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brought Impossible Need Perfection
For all the happiness mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.
JOHN DRYDEN

Happiness Kind Man Sadness
Secret guilt is by silence revealed.
JOHN DRYDEN

Guilty Reveal Secret Silence
Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Poetry Satire Vice
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
A good conscience is a port which is landlocked on every side, where no winds can possibly invade. There a man may not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed waters.
JOHN DRYDEN

Conscience Goodness Image Man Reflection Water

Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

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Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

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