John Dryden
Men are but children of a larger growth.Collection: Children
The elephant is never won by anger; nor must that man who would reclaim a lion take him by the teeth.Collection: Anger
He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.Collection: Book
War is a trade of kings.Collection: Kings
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.Collection: Children
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying. If all the world be worth the winning, Think, oh think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee.Collection: Sweet
She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty, Grows cold even in the summer of her age.Collection: Beauty
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand, And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.Collection: Love
Not Heav'n itself upon the past has pow'r; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.Collection: Past
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 pass'd.Collection: Friendship
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.Collection: Life
I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language.Collection: Life
He wants worth who dares not praise a foe.Collection: Want
Repentance is the virtue of weak minds.Collection: Mind
So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.Collection: God
…So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the skyCollection: Sky
If you are for a merry jaunt, I will try, for once, who can foot it farthest.Collection: Journey
Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure,- Sweet is pleasure after pain.Collection: Sweet
One of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.Collection: Sublime
Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.Collection: Imagination
The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.Collection: Scum
It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence.Collection: Mistress
Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.Collection: Age
He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit.Collection: Curiosity
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. Like pilgrims to the' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.Collection: Life
I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.Collection: Women
Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows.Collection: Heart
Politicians neither love nor hate.Collection: Love
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.Collection: Rain
War seldom enters but where wealth allures.Collection: War
Repartee is the soul of conversation.Collection: Soul
No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.Collection: Government
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature's eye.Collection: Nature
Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.Collection: Zeal
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.Collection: Art
What passion cannot music raise and quell!Collection: Music
Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh.Collection: Thinking
Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.Collection: Forgiveness
For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?Collection: Thinking
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.Collection: Tree
When Misfortune is asleep, let no one wake her.Collection: Misfortunes
Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne.Collection: Kings
She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.Collection: Fear