John Dryden quotes

Successful crimes alone are justified.

• 3
• crime

All heiresses are beautiful.

• 2
• inheritance

Since every 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.

• 2
• endurance

Plots, true or false, are necessary things, to raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.

• 2
• revolution

Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you don't let other people spend it for you.

• 2
• time

Nature meant me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit.

• 2
• marriage

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

• 2
• habits

Honor is but an empty bubble.

• 2
• bubble

All objects lose by too familiar a view.

• 2
• knowledge

Such subtle Covenants shall be made,Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade.

• 2

Nor is the people's judgement always true;The most may err as grossly as the few.

• 2
• fashion

What passions cannot music raise or quell?

• 1
• music

You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.

• 1
• crooked

God never made His work for man to mend.

• 1
• god

Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

• 1
• death

He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.

• 1
• plagiarism

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

• 1
• patriotism

To die is landing on some distant shore.

• 1
• death

Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

• 1
• politics

Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!

• 1
• opportunity

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

• 1
• pictures

For all have not the gift of martyrdom.

• 1
• conformity

Repentance is but want of power to sin.

• 1
• forgiveness

Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.

• 1
• body

There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.

• 1
• being

Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.

• 1
• war

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.

• 1
• affections

Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

• love

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.

• genius

Reason to rule but mercy to forgive The first is the law, the last prerogative.

We lov'd, and we lov'd as long as we couldTil our love was lov'd out in us both;But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure has fled:'Twas pleasure that made it an oath.

• divorce

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.

• happiness

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure.

• military

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.

• believe

First we make our habits, then our habits make us.

• habits

The people have a right supremeTo make their kings, for Kings are made for them.All Empire is no more than Pow'r in Trust,Which when resum'd, can be no longer just.Successionm for the general good design'd,In its own wrong a Nation cannot bind.

• literary

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!

• fate

Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.

• money

They that possess the prince possess the laws.

• laws

The first is the law, the last prerogative.

• first

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

• contentment

A knock-down argument; 'tis but a word and a blow.

• argument

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

• beauty

Railing and praising were his usual themes; and both showed his judgment in extremes. Either over violent or over civil, so everyone to him was either god or devil.

• fanaticism

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.

• help

Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.

• maturity

Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin

• patience

For present joys are more to flesh and blood than a dull prospect of a distant good.

• joy

Fortune, that with malicious joyDoes man her slave oppress,Proud of her office to destroy,Is seldom pleasd to bless.

And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.

• frailty

He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.

• death

If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.

• brief

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

• all

All human things are subject to decay,And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey;This Flecknoe found, who like Augustus youngWas call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:In prose and verse, was own'd, without disputeThrough all the realms of nonsense, absolute.

• fate

Woman's honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil.

• honor

And plenty makes us poor.

• makes

Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.

• fortune

But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.

• far