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John Dryden Quotes

John Dryden

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He has not learned the first lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
- John Dryden
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Even victors are by victories undone.
- John Dryden
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What passions cannot music raise or quell?
- John Dryden
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Honor is but an empty bubble.
- John Dryden
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It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.
- John Dryden
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All objects lose by too familiar a view.
- John Dryden
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Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
- John Dryden
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The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
- John Dryden
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Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
- John Dryden
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I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again.
- John Dryden
Collection: Determination
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What I have left is from my native spring; I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.
- John Dryden
Collection: Spring
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I am devilishly afraid, that's certain; but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant.
- John Dryden
Collection: Evil
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Beware of the fury of the patient man.
- John Dryden
Collection: Fear
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By education most have been misled.
- John Dryden
Collection: Education
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Confidence is the feeling we have before knowing all the facts
- John Dryden
Collection: Confidence
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Silence in times of suffering is the best.
- John Dryden
Collection: Silence
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For they can conquer who believe they can.
- John Dryden
Collection: Confidence
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Self-defense is Nature's eldest law.
- John Dryden
Collection: Gun
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Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
- John Dryden
Collection: Forgiveness
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'Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.
- John Dryden
Collection: Funny
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The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind's great bribe.
- John Dryden
Collection: Generosity
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We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.
- John Dryden
Collection: Iron
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He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master
- John Dryden
Collection: Trust
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Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.
- John Dryden
Collection: Atheist
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Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject's sole prerogative.
- John Dryden
Collection: Freedom
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The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms.
- John Dryden
Collection: Arms
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Among our crimes oblivion may be set.
- John Dryden
Collection: May
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For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
- John Dryden
Collection: Mother
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If all the world be worth thy winning. / Think, oh think it worth enjoying: / Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee, / Take the good the gods provide thee.
- John Dryden
Collection: Winning
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At home the hateful names of parties cease, And factious souls are wearied into peace.
- John Dryden
Collection: Peace
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There is a proud modesty in merit.
- John Dryden
Collection: Proud
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Sculptors are obliged to follow the manners of the painters, and to make many ample folds, which are unsufferable hardness, and more like a rock than a natural garment.
- John Dryden
Collection: Rocks
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If you have lived, take thankfully the past. Make, as you can, the sweet remembrance last.
- John Dryden
Collection: Gratitude
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Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.
- John Dryden
Collection: Real
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Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem.
- John Dryden
Collection: Greek
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Virgil and Horace [were] the severest writers of the severest age.
- John Dryden
Collection: Age
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All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.
- John Dryden
Collection: Gold
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We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.
- John Dryden
Collection: Truth
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Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
- John Dryden
Collection: Flow
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Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead.
- John Dryden
Collection: Firsts
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For age but tastes of pleasures youth devours.
- John Dryden
Collection: Age
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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
Collection: God
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He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
- John Dryden
Collection: Death
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Virtue is her own reward.
- John Dryden
Collection: Rewards
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Fowls, by winter forced, forsake the floods, and wing their hasty flight to happier lands.
- John Dryden
Collection: Winter
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Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.
- John Dryden
Collection: Imagination
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Second thoughts, they say, are best.
- John Dryden
Collection: Second Thoughts

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