John Dryden Quotes

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she's at rest, and so am I.

'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that's new.

They say everything in the world is good for something.

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

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

The sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree.

A man so various, that he seem’d to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

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

O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!

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

Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.

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.

If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients: nothing seems more easy to him than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well; for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models.

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.