John Dryden cytaty

strona 4

„Najpierw tworzymy sami własne nawyki, potem nawyki tworzą nas.”

„Ludzie – to tylko dzieci, trochę większego wzrostu.”

„Miłość uznaje godziny za miesiące i dni za lata, a każda chwila nieobecności jest stuleciem.”

„Wystrzegaj się furii człowieka cierpliwego.”

„Zazdrość – żółtaczka duszy.”

„Bardzo chciałbym wiedzieć, czy małżeństwo jest rzeczywiście jednym z siedmiu sakramentów, czy też może jednym z grzechów głównych.”

“Auspicious Prince! at whose nativity
Some royal planet rul'd the southern sky;
Thy longing country's darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar, and their guardian fire:
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shows the promis'd land:
Whose dawning day, in very distant age,
Has exercis'd the sacred prophet's rage:
The people's pray'r, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!”

“Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.”

“Than a successive title long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.”

“Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.”

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

“All have not the gift of martyrdom.”

“Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,
Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state!”

“[T]he 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.”

“Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“The Wild Gallant, act ii. scene. 1.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“[Music] is inarticulate poesy.”

“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.”

“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.”