black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.

John Dryden

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
JOHN DRYDEN

Decay Monarch Obedience Subject
But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.
JOHN DRYDEN

Desire Hands Nature Sick Sin
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
JOHN DRYDEN

Grace Known Order Place
Those who write ill, and they who ne’er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.
JOHN DRYDEN

Criticism Revenge Writing
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
JOHN DRYDEN

Pain Pleasure Sweet
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
Pride – Lord of human kind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Pride
What, start at this! when sixty years have spread. Their grey experience o’er thy hoary head? Is this the all observing age could gain? Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
JOHN DRYDEN

Age Empty Experience Known Start World
And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Fragile Love Mindset
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.
JOHN DRYDEN

Death Fear Known
For age but tastes of pleasures youth devours.
JOHN DRYDEN

Age Devour Pleasure Taste Youth
An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.
JOHN DRYDEN

Benefit Fate Pleasure Relate Sorrow Time
Dancing is the poetry of the foot.
JOHN DRYDEN

Dance Foot Poetry
Here lies my wife: here let her lie! Now she’s at rest, and so am I.
JOHN DRYDEN

Lying Myself Wife
Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject’s sole prerogative.
JOHN DRYDEN

Freedom Subject Thrive
Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.
JOHN DRYDEN

Blind Willing Zeal
By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man.
JOHN DRYDEN

Believe Children Direction Education Lost Man
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
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate’s: Souls know no conquerors.
JOHN DRYDEN

Empty Enough Fortune Myself Soul
Many things impossible to thought have been by need to full perfection brought.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brought Impossible Need Perfection
None, none descends into himself, to find The secret imperfections of his mind: But every one is eagle-ey’d to see Another’s faults, and his deformity.
JOHN DRYDEN

Finding Himself Imperfection Mistake Secret
Old as I am, for ladies’ love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.
JOHN DRYDEN

Myself Old Power Remember
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
I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night.
JOHN DRYDEN

Brown Easy Light Night
Honor is but an empty bubble.
JOHN DRYDEN

Empty Respect
Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
JOHN DRYDEN

Degree River Sea
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

Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Dryden Quotes