John Dryden Quotes
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Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
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Than a successive title long and dark,Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.
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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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All empire is no more than power in trust.
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Even victors are by victories undone.
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Him of the western dome, whose weighty senseFlows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
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I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.
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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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I have a soul that like an ample shieldCan take in all, and verge enough for more.
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For they conquer who believe they can.
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As long as words a different sense will bear, And each may be his own interpreter, Our airy faith will no foundation find; The word's a weathercock for every wind.
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Thespis, the first professor of our art,At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
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Railing and praising were his usual themes;And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;So over violent, or over civil,That every man with him was God or devil.
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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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He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind;Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind.
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A Heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform.
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A man so various, that he seem’d 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 moonWas chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
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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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Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,In him alone 't was natural to please.
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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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She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
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Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes careTo grant, before we can conclude the prayer:Preventing angels met it half the way,And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
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Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.
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But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.