John Dryden Quotes - Page 8

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• Griefs assured are felt before they come.

  John Dryden

  Grief, Assured, Felt

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• Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer: Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.

  John Dryden

  Prayer, Angel, Heaven

  John Dryden (1870). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden”, p.287

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• Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh.

  John Dryden

  Thinking, Age, Creeps

  Juvenal, John Dryden, Nahum Tate, Persius, Richard Duke (1713). “The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: and of Aulus Persius Flaccus”, p.150

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• Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.

  John Dryden

  Zeal, All Things

  John Dryden (1701). “Poems on Various Occasions: And Translations from Several Authors”, p.10

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• Love is a passion
  Which kindles honor into noble acts.

  John Dryden

  Love, Life, Passion

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• What passion cannot music raise and quell!

  John Dryden

  Music, Passion, Piano

  A Song for St. Cecilia's Day st. 2 (1687)

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• But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.

  John Dryden

  Circles, Magic, Walks

  John Dryden (1870). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden”, p.400

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• Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.

  John Dryden

  Philosophical, Learning, Math

  John Dryden, George Saintsbury, Sir Walter Scott (1892). “The Works of John Dryden: Poetical works”

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• The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.

  John Dryden

  Men, Afterlife, Burden

  John Dryden (1859). “The poetical works of John Dryden”, p.132

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• Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.

  John Dryden

  Forgiveness, Soul, Forgiving

  John Dryden (1882). “Dramatic works”

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• For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?

  John Dryden

  Thinking, Giving, Ease

  John Dryden (1870). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden”, p.133

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• Luxurious kings are to their people lost,
  They live like drones, upon the public cost.

  John Dryden

  Kings, People, Drones

  John Dryden, Sir Walter Scott (1808). “The Works of John Dryden,: The life of John Dryden”, p.228

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• If thou dost still retain the same ill habits, the same follies, too, still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.

  John Dryden

  Art, Vices, Slave

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• Present joys are more to flesh and blood
  Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

  John Dryden

  Happiness, Determination, Blood

  'The Hind and the Panther' (1687) pt. 3, l. 364

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• Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
  Because its virtues are not understood;
  Yet many things, impossible to thought,
  Have been by need to full perfection brought.
  The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
  Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
  Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
  And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.

  John Dryden

  Taken, Giving, Perfection

  John Dryden (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of John Dryden (Illustrated)”, p.504, Delphi Classics

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• 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

  Soul, Able, Too Much

  John Dryden, Paul Hammond, David Hopkins (2007). “Dryden: Selected Poems”, p.261, Pearson Education

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• Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.

  John Dryden

  Death, Woe, Kind

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author”, p.475

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• He trudged along unknowing what he sought, And whistled as he went, for want of thought.

  John Dryden

  Want, Unknowing

  'Cymon and Iphigenia' (1700) l. 84

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• I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric.

  John Dryden

  Memories, Reading, Verses

  John Dryden (1779). “The Works of the English Poets. With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Samuel Johnson”, p.105

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• The wretched have no friends.

  John Dryden

  Friends, No Friends, Wretched

  John Bell, Joseph Addison, Michael Arne, John Banks, John Brown (1792). “British Theatre: Isabella, or, The fatal marriage”

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• It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.

  John Dryden

  Plenty, Sufficient

  Fables Ancient and Modern preface (1700)

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• I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language.

  John Dryden

  Life, Native Language, Trade

  John Dryden (1988). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume V: Poems, 1697”, p.336, Univ of California Press

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• Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.

  John Dryden

  Long, Wit

  John Dryden, Joseph Warton, John Warton (1811). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden: Containing Original Poems, Tales and Translations”, p.353

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• Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.

  John Dryden

  Leaving, Excellence, Criticism

  John Dryden, John Mitford (1836). “The Works of John Dryden: In Verse and Prose, with a Life”, p.424

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• Virgil is so exact in every word, that none can be changed but for a worse; nor any one removed from its place, but the harmony will be altered. He pretends sometimes to trip; but it is only to make you think him in danger of a fall, when he is most secure.

  John Dryden

  Fall, Thinking, Make You Think

  Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Dryden, Alexander Pope (1783). “The art of painting of Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy”, p.176

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