God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDENImagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.
More John Dryden Quotes
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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 -
The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind’s great bribe.
JOHN DRYDEN -
If passion rules, how weak does reason prove!
JOHN DRYDEN -
An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
JOHN DRYDEN -
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 -
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 -
All empire is no more than power in trust.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Take not away the life you cannot give: For all things have an equal right to live.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Treason is greatest where trust is greatest.
JOHN DRYDEN -
Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to the’ appointed place we tend; The world’s an inn, and death the journey’s end.
JOHN DRYDEN