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All authors to their own defects are blind.

John Dryden

Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.
JOHN DRYDEN

Errors Flow Gratitude Surface
Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
JOHN DRYDEN

Myself Poverty Soul Virtue Warm
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

Best Kind Ourselves Steal
None but the brave deserve the fair.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brave Deserve Fair
Sure there is none but fears a future state; And when the most obdurate swear they do not, Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.
JOHN DRYDEN

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

Block Government Time
We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.
JOHN DRYDEN

Chance Hot Iron Leisure
I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
JOHN DRYDEN

Freedom Man Nature Run Savage Wild
Fattened in vice, so callous and so gross, he sins and sees not, senseless of his loss.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Loss See Vice
Some of our philosophizing divines have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that by their force mankind has been able to find out God.
JOHN DRYDEN

Divine Faculty Force God Kind Man Philosophy
They first condemn that first advised the ill.
JOHN DRYDEN

Advise Sick
They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.
JOHN DRYDEN

Authority Better General Man Opinion Understand
Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.
JOHN DRYDEN

Best Give Up Knowledge Nature Production True
None are so busy as the fool and the knave.
JOHN DRYDEN

Busy Fools
Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.
JOHN DRYDEN

Hold Last Sweet
Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.
JOHN DRYDEN

Desire God Greatness Sin

All authors to their own defects are blind.

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All authors to their own defects are blind.

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