John Dryden
He made all countries where he came his own.Collection: Country
I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric.Collection: Memories
Shakespeare was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of the books to read nature; he looked inward, and found her there.Collection: Book
Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus's blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure- Sweet is pleasure after pain.Collection: Sweet
To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.Collection: Evil
The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine.Collection: Dine
Revealed religion first informed thy sight, and reason saw not till faith sprung to light.Collection: Light
We by art unteach what Nature taught.Collection: Art
Merit challenges envy.Collection: Envy
A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.Collection: Passion
Love either finds equality or makes it.Collection: Love
In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land.Collection: Heart
A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.Collection: Numbness
Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.Collection: Truth
Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.Collection: Men
Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.Collection: Noble
Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.Collection: Grace
Pity only on fresh objects stays, but with the tedious sight of woes decays.Collection: Sight
Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.Collection: Pain
Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.Collection: Love
Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.Collection: Eye
Faith is to believe what you do not yet see: the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.Collection: Believe
For all the happiness mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.Collection: Happiness
Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends.Collection: Tears
Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.Collection: Greatness
An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.Collection: Fate
Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.Collection: Beautiful
Few know the use of life before 'tis past.Collection: Past
Mighty things from small beginnings grow.Collection: Love
A narrow mind begets obstinacy; we do not easily believe what we cannot see.Collection: Believe
If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong; their judgment is a mere lottery.Collection: Thinking
None are so busy as the fool and the knave.Collection: Knaves
The winds are out of breath.Collection: Wind
Hushed as midnight silence.Collection: Silence
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join'd the former two.Collection: Nature
Lucky men are favorites of Heaven.Collection: Men
But how can finite grasp Infinity?Collection: Infinity
Deathless laurel is the victor's due.Collection: Fame
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.Collection: Victory
They first condemn that first advised the ill.Collection: Advice
Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Life
From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, 'Arise, ye more than dead!' Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.Collection: Men
Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.Collection: Revenge