John Dryden Quotes
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When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
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Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, but genius must be born; and never can be taught.
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As sure as a gun.
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Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.
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With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,For every inch that is not fool is rogue :A monstrous mass of fuul corrupted matter,As all the devils had spew'd to make the baiter.When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,He curses God, but God before curst him ;And, if man could have reason, none has more.That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.
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… not judging truth to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both according to interest.
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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.
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Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
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Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
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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.
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Behold him setting in his western skies,The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.
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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.
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And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.
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But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;Within that circle none durst walk but he.
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The trumpet's loud clangorExcites us to arms.
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Men met each other with erected look,The steps were higher that they took;Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.
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The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,But Shadwell never deviates into sense.Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,Strike through and make a lucid interval;But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
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A man so various, that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind's epitome;Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,Was everything by starts, and nothing long;But, in the course of one revolving moon,Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
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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.
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A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.
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Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
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Dancing is the poetry of the foot.