black
grey
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Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

John Dryden

When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow’s falser than the former day.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cheat Day False Fools Life
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
Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Poetry Satire Vice
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
JOHN DRYDEN

Grace Strength
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
So softly death succeeded life in her, She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
JOHN DRYDEN

Death Dreams Heaven Herself Life Success
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Mindset Worst
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
JOHN DRYDEN

Elegant Flower Heaven Western
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
JOHN DRYDEN

Adventure First Forgiveness Reason Rule
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
JOHN DRYDEN

Degree River Sea
Railing and praising were his usual themes; and both showed his judgment in extremes. Either over violent or over civil, so everyone to him was either god or devil.
JOHN DRYDEN

Himself Judgement Praise Theme
For those whom God to ruin has design’d, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Design God Mindset Ruin
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
Imagining 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.
JOHN DRYDEN

Emotion Enthusiasm Height Imagination Paint Poet Soul
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
JOHN DRYDEN

Character Habit Inspirational Nature Ourselves
But love’s a malady without a cure.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cure Love

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

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Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

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Popular Authors

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