John Dryden: Trending quotes

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John Dryden: 392 quotes21 likes

“All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,
The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat,
And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat;
Even Lust and Envy sleep.”

John Dryden

The Indian Emperor (1667), Act III, scene ii.

“If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 41.

“Twas now the month in which the world began
(If March beheld the first created man):
And since the vernal equinox, the Sun,
In Aries, twelve degrees, or more, had run;
When casting up his eyes against the light,
Both month, and day, and hour, he measur'd right;
And told more truly than th' Ephemeris:
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast,
His second crowing the third hour confess'd.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

The Cock and the Fox line 445 - 457.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley, and a lofty wood.”

John Dryden

Georgic II, lines 688–691.
The Works of Virgil (1697)

“All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.”

John Dryden

Source: Mac Flecknoe (1682), l. 1–2.

“Sound the trumpets; beat the drums…
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.”

John Dryden

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 50–51.

“A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“Nay, tho' our Atoms shou'd revolve by chance,
And matter leape into the former dance;
Tho' time our Life and motion cou'd restore,
And make our Bodies what they were before,
What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring,
The new made man wou'd be another thing;
When once an interrupting pause is made,
That individual Being is decay'd.
We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
Which to that other Mortal shall accrew,
Whom of our Matter Time shall mould anew.”

John Dryden

Sylvae (London, 1685), Translation of the Latter Part of the Third Book of Lucretius, "Against the Fear of Death", pp. 61–62.

“For those whom God to ruin has design'd,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. III, line 2387.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

“The Wild Gallant, act ii. scene. 1.”

John Dryden

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word's a weathercock for every wind.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. I, lines 462–465.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

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

John Dryden Aureng-zebe

Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.

“Like a led victim, to my death I'll go,
And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.”

John Dryden

Act II, scene 1.
The Spanish Friar (1681)

“And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd
For one fair female, lost him half the kind.”

John Dryden

Theodore and Honoria, line 227.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade.”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I, lines 750–751.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

“[Music] is inarticulate poesy.”

John Dryden Tyrannick Love

Tyrannick Love (1669), Preface

“Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.”

John Dryden

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 77–83.

“Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.”

John Dryden

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 66–70.