Quotes from work
All for Love

All for Love

All for Love; or, the World Well Lost, is a 1677 heroic drama by John Dryden which is now his best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine.


John Dryden photo
John Dryden photo

“Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.”

Prologue
Source: All for Love (1678)
Context: Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Fops may have leave to level all they can;
As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

John Dryden photo
John Dryden photo
John Dryden photo

“With how much ease believe we what we wish!”

Cleopatra in Act IV, scene I
All for Love (1678)

John Dryden photo

“The wretched have no friends.”

Act III, scene I
All for Love (1678)

John Dryden photo
John Dryden photo

“What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!”

Prologue
All for Love (1678)
Context: What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
And follow dying poets by the scent.

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