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None are so busy as the fool and the knave.

John Dryden

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John Dryden
Age: 68 †
Born: 1631
Born: August 7
Died: 1700
Died: May 12
Hymnwriter
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Aldwincle
Northamptonshire
Knave
Knaves
Busy
None
Fool

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Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.
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Railing and praising were his usual themes and both showed his judgment in extremes. Either over violent or over civil, so everyone to him was either god or devil.
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Home is the sacred refuge of our life.
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Fool, not to know that love endures no tie, And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
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Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.
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Light sufferings give us leisure to complain.
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If one must be rejected, one succeed, make him my lord within whose faithful breast is fixed my image, and who loves me best.
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Want is a bitter and a hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been by need to full perfection brought. The daring of the soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit, and active diligence Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.
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A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart's ease he liv'd and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.
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Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown, A flaw is in thy ill-bak'd vessel found 'Tis hollow, and returns a jarring sound, Yet thy moist clay is pliant to command, Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand: Now take the mould now bend thy mind to feel The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.
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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.
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Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward.
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