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Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.

John Dryden

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDEN

Better Health Himself Man Work
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
JOHN DRYDEN

Character Habit Inspirational Nature Ourselves
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
And plenty makes us poor.
JOHN DRYDEN

Poor
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead.
JOHN DRYDEN

Cheap Death Fame
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain.
JOHN DRYDEN

Complain Leisure Light Suffering
There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.
JOHN DRYDEN

Gift Modesty Proud Time
War seldom enters but where wealth allures.
JOHN DRYDEN

Seldom War Wealth
Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject’s sole prerogative.
JOHN DRYDEN

Freedom Subject Thrive
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 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

Character Kind Man Natural Painting Person Poetry
Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
JOHN DRYDEN

Human Kind Mindset Worst
Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.
JOHN DRYDEN

Love Pain Pleasure
If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?
JOHN DRYDEN

Honor Judgement Man Member Mistake Order
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

Judgement People Thinking Understand Wrong
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

Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.

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Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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