John Denham Quotes

I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres... [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words... therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as man of this age.

Actions o' th' last age are like almanacks o' th' last year.

Books should to one of these four ends conduce, For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

Search not to find what lies too deeply hid, Nor to know things whose knowledge is forbid; Nor climb on pyramids, which thy head turn round Standing, and whence no safe descent is found.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold; His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.

We're ne'er like angels till our passion dies.

But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor.

Ambition is like love, impatient Both of delays and rivals.

Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.

That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line;
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
To make translations, and translators too;
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

Whatsoever
Is worthy of their love, is worth their anger.

Variety, which all the rest endears.

Let not the pleasing many thee delight, First judge if those whom thou dost please judge right.

Wisdom's first progress is to take a view What's decent or indecent, false or true.

But whither am I strayed? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built; Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.