John Dryden
133 quotes
Biography
"Love is love's reward."
"But love's a malady without a cure."
"Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue."
"When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit."
"I am sore wounded but not slainI will lay me down and bleed a whileAnd then rise up to fight again"
"Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below."
"But far more numerous was the herd of such,Who think too little, and who talk too much."
"Fortune befriends the bold."
"A thing well said will be wit in all languages."
"Above<!--originally "'Bove'"--> any Greek or Roman name."
"Since heaven's eternal year is thine."
"Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child."
"And torture one poor word ten thousand ways."
"Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the cement of all societies."
"Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace."
"Genius must be born, and never can be taught."
"How easie is it to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade, which yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickl'd while he is hurt in this manner, and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place."
"Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife."
"If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients: nothing seems more easy to him than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well; for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models."
"The Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action."
"To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,"
"Music...is inarticulate poesy."
"All delays are dangerous in war."
"Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me."
"I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty."