John Dryden
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise!Collection: Revenge
Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave deserves the fair.Collection: Bravery
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.Collection: Failure
Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.Collection: Blind
When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.Collection: Ideas
For those whom God to ruin has design'd, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.Collection: Fate
Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.Collection: Truth
Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.Collection: Mean
We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.Collection: Wicked
All flowers will droop in the absence of the sun that waked their sweets.Collection: Sweet
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.Collection: Fate
But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.Collection: Mean
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.Collection: Circles
Secret guilt is by silence revealed.Collection: Silence
Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.Collection: Kings
There is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.Collection: Depression
If thou dost still retain the same ill habits, the same follies, too, still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.Collection: Art
Griefs assured are felt before they come.Collection: Grief
Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.Collection: Men
Treason is greatest where trust is greatest.Collection: Trust
They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.Collection: Men
The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Philosophical
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.Collection: Prayer
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.Collection: Soul
He trudged along unknowing what he sought, And whistled as he went, for want of thought.Collection: Want
Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Character
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?Collection: Birthday
Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.Collection: Foundation
Time glides with undiscover'd haste; The future but a length behind the past.Collection: Past
All empire is no more than power in trust.Collection: Power
All authors to their own defects are blind.Collection: Blind
Trust on and think To-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new Joys, cuts off what we possest.Collection: Lying
Such subtle Covenants shall be made,Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade.Collection: Peace
Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.Collection: Kings
Be secret and discreet; the fairy favors are lost when not concealed.Collection: Secret
A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, and leave the luggage of good works behind.Collection: Faith
To take up half on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith but bungling bigotry.Collection: Faith
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.Collection: Stupid
My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.Collection: Heart
I feel my sinews slackened with the fright, and a cold sweat trills down all over my limbs, as if I were dissolving into water.Collection: Fear
A thing well said will be wit in all languages.Collection: Language
Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection; and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies; the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward.Collection: Art
When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.Collection: Love
The Fates but only spin the coarser clue; The finest of the wool is left for you.Collection: Fate
The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.Collection: Men