Quote

The winds that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge Their straighten'd lungs or conscious of their charge.

John Dryden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Dryden
Age: 68 †
Born: 1631
Born: August 7
Died: 1700
Died: May 12
Hymnwriter
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Aldwincle
Northamptonshire
Afraid
Winds
Wind
Lungs
Joy
Moderation
Knew
Charge
Much
Breath
Faintly
Never
Breaths
Straighten
Blow
Enlarge
Conscious
Blew

More quotes by John Dryden

Image
From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners. Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave God cannot grant so much as they can crave.
John Dryden
Image
Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.
John Dryden
Image
A coward is the kindest animal 'Tis the most forgiving creature in a fight.
John Dryden
Image
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years and every little absence is an age.
John Dryden
Image
Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.
John Dryden
Image
My love's a noble madness.
John Dryden
Image
I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
John Dryden
Image
The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.
John Dryden
Image
Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.
John Dryden
Image
What I have left is from my native spring I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.
John Dryden
Image
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
John Dryden
Image
Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.
John Dryden
Image
Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.
John Dryden
Image
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain.
John Dryden
Image
not judging truth to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both according to interest.
John Dryden
Image
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend God never made his work for man to mend.
John Dryden
Image
Hushed as midnight silence.
John Dryden
Image
Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.
John Dryden
Image
With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek: Of these, my barbers take a costly care.
John Dryden
Image
The perverseness of my fate is such that he's not mine because he's mine too much.
John Dryden