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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

Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brought Impossible Need Perfection
If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!
JOHN DRYDEN

Evidence Passion Reason Rule Weakness
Men’s virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.
JOHN DRYDEN

Crime Freedom Tax Virtue
We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.
JOHN DRYDEN

Adversity Grief Misery Wicket
For those whom God to ruin has design’d, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Design God Mindset Ruin
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother ten, Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.
JOHN DRYDEN

Creation Earth Eyes Man Mom Sky Soft
Murder may pass unpunished for a time, But tardy justice will overtake the crime.
JOHN DRYDEN

Crime Murder Punishment Time
He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fear Learning Lesson
O freedom, first delight of human kind!
JOHN DRYDEN

Delight Freedom Human Kind
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Bold Goodness Starve
A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart’s ease he liv’d; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Man Paradise Sin Sorrow Woman
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

Age Distant Force Herself Nature Poet
A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cheating Man Passion Reason Truth
And that the Scriptures, though not everywhere Free from corruption, or entire, or clear, Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire In all things which our needful faith require.
JOHN DRYDEN

Corruption Faith Freedom Need Scripture Sufficient
Few know the use of life before ’tis past.
JOHN DRYDEN

Life Past
Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.
JOHN DRYDEN

Estate Himself Misery Money Sell Soul
Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cement Foundation Knowledge Society Truth
Treason is greatest where trust is greatest.
JOHN DRYDEN

Greatness Treason Trust
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Mindset Worst
Trust on and think To-morrow will repay; To-morrow’s falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new Joys, cuts off what we possest.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fake Happiness Thinking Trust
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

Life Man Origin Virtue Word
And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fragile Love Mindset
None but the brave deserve the fair.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brave Deserve Fair
All authors to their own defects are blind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Author Blind Defect
Love is love’s reward.
JOHN DRYDEN

Love One Liner Reward
Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets;Jonson was theVirgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
JOHN DRYDEN

Admire Drama Father Himself Home Poet Writing
Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.
JOHN DRYDEN

Hold Last Sweet

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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