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John Dryden Quotes
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John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668.He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romanticist writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Wikipedia  

✵ 9. August 1631 – 1. May 1700
John Dryden photo
John Dryden: 196 quotes21 likes

John Dryden Quotes

“Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.”

John Dryden

Epistle to Congreve (1693), line 19.

“Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.”

John Dryden

Palamon and Arcite, book ii, line 758.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.”

John Dryden Amphitryon

Amphitryon (1690), Act I scene i.

“Not only hating David, but the king.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. I, line 512.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

“Since ev’ry man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Palamon and Arcite.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

“Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go.
To make a third, she joined the former two.”

John Dryden

Under Mr. Milton's Picture (1688).

“Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 133.

“And doomed to death, though fated not to die.”

John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther

Pt. I, line 8.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)

“Men met each other with erected look,
The steps were higher that they took;
Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,
And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.”

John Dryden

Threnodia Augustalis (1685), line 124-127.

“And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.”

John Dryden

Britannia Rediviva (1688), line 208.

“For pity melts the mind to love.”

John Dryden

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 96.

“Whatever is, is in its causes just.”

John Dryden

Act III, scene i.
Œdipus (1679)

“Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our fore-fathers and great-grandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are call'd by other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

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

“When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd 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 possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.”

John Dryden Aureng-zebe

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

“Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I, lines 781–782.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

“I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.”

John Dryden

Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 156–159.

“Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.”

John Dryden

Pastoral X, lines 98–99.
The Works of Virgil (1697)

“Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.”

John Dryden

Aeneis, Book VI, line 512.
The Works of Virgil (1697)

“Look round the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.”

John Dryden

Juvenal, Satire X (1693), lines 1–2.

“Calms appear, when storms are past,
Love will have its hour at last.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), The Secular Masque (1700), Lines 72–73.

“He's a sure card.”

John Dryden

Act II, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)

“As sure as a gun.”

John Dryden

Act III, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)

“Lord of humankind.”

John Dryden

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

“Love is love's reward. ”

John Dryden

“There are so few who have all the talents requisite for translation and… there is so little encouragement for so considerable part of learning.”

John Dryden