Best 439 quotes of John Dryden on MyQuotes

What judgment I had increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or reject; to run them into verse or to give them the other harmony of prose.

What passion cannot music raise and quell!

What precious drops are those, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their faint dew?

What, start at this! when sixty years have spread. Their grey experience o'er thy hoary head? Is this the all observing age could gain? Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?

When a man's life is under debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear.

When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat. Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay. To-morrow 's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow's falser than the former day.

When the Sun sets, shadows, that shew'd at Noon But small, appear most long and terrible; So, when we think Fate hovers o'er our Heads, Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds, Owls, Ravens, Crickets seem the watch of death, Nature's worst Vermine scare her God-like Sons. Ecchoes the very leavings of a Voice, Grow babling Ghosts, and call us to our Graves: Each Mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus, While we fantastick Dreamers heave and puff, And sweat with an Imagination's weight.

When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.

While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek; And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek: Of these, my barbers take a costly care.

Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.

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

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

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

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail; And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.

Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.

Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.

Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below.

Farewell, ungrateful traitor, Farewell, my perjured swain; Let never injured creature Believe a man again. The pleasure of possessing Surpasses all expressing, But 'tis too short a blessing, And love too long a pain. 'Tis easy to deceive us In pity of your pain; But when we love you leave us To rail at you in vain. Before we have descried it There is no bliss beside it, But she that once has tried it Will never love again. The passion we pretended Was only to obtain, But when the charm is ended The charmer you disdain. Your love by ours we measure Till we have lost our treasure, But dying is a pleasure When living is a pain.

For you may palm upon us new for old: All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.

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

I am sore wounded but not slain I will lay me down and bleed a while And then rise up to fight again

Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw? Oh curst Effects of necessary Law! How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan, Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.

None are so busy as the fool and knave.

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.

Thus like a Captive in an Isle confin'd, Man walks at large, a Pris'ner of the Mind

We first make our habits, then our habits make us.

Whatever is, is in its causes just; But purblind man Sees but a part o' th' chain; the nearest link; His eyes not carrying to that equal beam That poises all above.

Whence but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, In several ages born, in several parts, Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why, Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possesst.