John Dryden Quotes
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And plenty makes us poor.
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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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Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!
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Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
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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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Of seeming arms to make a short essay,Then hasten to be drunk - the business of the day.
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But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.
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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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Of no distemper, of no blast he died,But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long - Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;Till like a clock worn out with eating time,The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
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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.
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Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;And they have kept it since by being dead.
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Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;And peace itself is war in masquerade.
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Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.
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Three poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;The next, in majesty; in both the last.The force of Nature could no further go.To make a third, she joined the former two.
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I have a soul that like an ample shieldCan take in all, and verge enough for more.
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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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I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.
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Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
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Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
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You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.
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All empire is no more than power in trust.
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But love's a malady without a cure.
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So, when the last and dreadful HourThis crumbling Pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And musick shall untune the Sky.
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Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.