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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 -
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
John Dryden
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A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.
John Dryden -
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
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 -
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power;But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
John Dryden -
T' abhor the makers, and their laws approve,Is to hate traitors and the treason love.
John Dryden -
She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,Grows cold even in the summer of her age.
John Dryden
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Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, but genius must be born; and never can be taught.
John Dryden -
For pity melts the mind to love.
John Dryden -
Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.
John Dryden -
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 -
They say everything in the world is good for something.
John Dryden
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By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man.
John Dryden -
As sure as a gun.
John Dryden -
Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,And none can boast sincere felicity,With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
John Dryden -
Not only hating David, but the king.
John Dryden -
Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.
John Dryden -
Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
John Dryden
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But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;Within that circle none durst walk but he.
John Dryden -
Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
John Dryden -
My next desire is, void of care and strife,To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:A country cottage near a crystal flood,A winding valley, and a lofty wood.
John Dryden -
Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
John Dryden