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The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.

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
Men
Honor
Deserts
Arms
Brutes
Cause
Applause
Causes
Seeks
Though
Bravery
Force
Desert
Overpower
Doe
Popular
Foil
Best
Brave
Foils

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Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.
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An horrible stillness first invades our ear, And in that silence we the tempest fear.
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Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
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Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.
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Reason to rule, mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
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How easy 'tis, when Destiny proves kind, With full-spread sails to run before the wind!
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Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
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Fool that I was, upon my eagle's wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
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The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
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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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If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong their judgment is a mere lottery.
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Fool, not to know that love endures no tie, And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
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Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.
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They live too long who happiness outlive.
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Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble Honour but an empty bubble Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying. If all the world be worth the winning, Think, oh think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee.
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Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.
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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.
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Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.
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The conscience of a people is their power.
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The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race.
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