John Dryden Quotes
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Nor is the people's judgment always true:The most may err as grossly as the few.
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Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
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Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
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Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,But good men starve for want of impudence.
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Of all the tyrannies on human kindThe worst is that which persecutes the mind.
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Leave writing plays, and choose for thy commandSome peaceful province in acrostic land.There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
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O gracious God! how far have weProfaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
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Than a successive title long and dark,Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.
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His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim.
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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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The gates of hell are open night and day;Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:But to return, and view the cheerful skies,In this the task and mighty labor lies.
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Let old Timotheus yield the prize,Or both divide the crown;He rais’d a mortal to the skies;She drew an angel down.
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Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
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The trumpet's loud clangorExcites us to arms.
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A very merry, dancing, drinking,Laughing, quaffing, and unthinkable time.
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Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.
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Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in.Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,And in one word, heroically mad.
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Calms appear, when storms are past,Love will have its hour at last.
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I can enjoy her while she's kind;But when she dances in the wind,And shakes the wings and will not stay,I puff the prostitute away: The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd: Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
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I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;For every man's a fool to that degree:All wish the dire prerogative to kill;Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.