Pt. I, line 999–1005. Compare Publius Syrus, Maxim 289, "Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia" ("An over-taxed patience gives way to fierce anger").
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Context: Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin’d:
Why am I forc’d, like Heav’n, against my mind,
To make Examples of another Kind?
Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.
John Dryden: Trending quotes (page 2)
John Dryden trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
John Dryden:
392
quotes
21
likes
“It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time”
Works of John Dryden (1803) as quoted by P. Fleury Mottelay in William Gilbert of Colchester (1893)
Context: It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more.... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
Context: 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
Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)
Context: 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
“Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.”
Constantine the Great (1684), Epilogue.
Source: The Poetical Works of John Dryden
“Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide”
Pt. I, lines 159–172.
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Context: A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
“There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.”
Act II, scene 1.
The Spanish Friar (1681)
Book III, Ode 29, lines 65–68.
Imitation of Horace (1685)
Grand Chorus.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
Source: The Major Works
Context: So, when the last and dreadful Hour
This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.
“Secret guilt by silence is betrayed.”
Pt. III, line 763.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)
“But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.”
Pt. I, lines 532–533. Compare Matthew Prior, Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana, "They always talk who never think".
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
“What passion cannot Music raise and quell?”
St. 2.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
Variant: What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
“The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms.”
St. 3.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
“She hugged the offender, and forgave the offense:
Sex to the last.”
Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Lines 367–368.
“Jealousy, the jaundice of the soul.”
Pt. III, line 73.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)
“Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.”
Variant: Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Pt. II, lines 462–469.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)