John Dryden Quotes

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

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.

We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, Till our love was lov'd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead.

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

Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.

I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.

All delays are dangerous in war.

[Music] is inarticulate poesy.

And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears, And music more melodious than the spheres.

Their heavenly harps a lower strain began, and in soft music mourn the fall of man.

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,

The Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.

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.