John Dryden Quotes

Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.

Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;
Rich the treasure;
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.

All empire is no more than power in trust.

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.

words are but pictures of our thoughts

Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore;
Long labours both by sea and land he bore.

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

I have a soul that like an ample shield
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
Grows cold even in the summer of her age.

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

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

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

Welcome, thou kind deceiver!
Thou best of thieves: who, with an easy key,
Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,
Even steal us from ourselves.

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