John Dryden Quotes

Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.

John Dryden

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Quotes to Explore

• When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

  

  John Dryden
  • Mind

• Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;Rich the treasure;Sweet the pleasure;Sweet is pleasure after pain.

  

  John Dryden
  • Pain
  • Sweet
  • Drinking

• If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.

  

  John Dryden
  • Words

• There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.

  

  John Dryden
  • Mad

• Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

  

  John Dryden

• All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat,And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat;Even Lust and Envy sleep.

  

  John Dryden
  • Nature
  • Night
  • Sleep

• Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

  

  John Dryden
  • World
  • Boy

• War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

  

  John Dryden
  • War

• The fool of nature stood with stupid eyesAnd gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

  

  John Dryden
  • Nature
  • Stupid
  • Fool

• Madam me no madam.

  

  John Dryden

• In friendship false, implacable in hate,Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

  

  John Dryden
  • Hate
  • Friendship

• Here lies my wife:here let her lie!Now she's at rest, and so am I.

  

  John Dryden
  • She
  • Wife
  • Rest

• Endure the hardships of your present state,Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.

  

  John Dryden
  • Live
  • Present
  • Fate

• 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
  • Men

• The sword within the scabbard keep,And let mankind agree.

  

  John Dryden

• Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,Fallen from his high estate,And welt'ring in his blood;Deserted, at his utmost need,By those his former bounty fed,On the bare earth exposed he lies,With not a friend to close his eyes.

  

  John Dryden
  • High
  • Earth
  • Friend

• Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.

  

  John Dryden
  • Death
  • Fear

• The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

  

  John Dryden

• Lord of humankind.

  

  John Dryden

• What flocks of critics hover here to-day,As vultures wait on armies for their prey,All gaping for the carcase of a play!With croaking notes they bode some dire event,And follow dying poets by the scent.

  

  John Dryden
  • Dying

• Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.

  

  John Dryden
  • Nature
  • Bold

• Honor is but an empty bubble.

  

  John Dryden
  • Honor

• Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

  

  John Dryden

• Burn daylight.

  

  John Dryden