Quote

For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?

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
Thinking
Bounds
Drink
Food
Power
Give
Live
Giving
Bound
Think
Ease

More quotes by John Dryden

Image
And after hearing what our Church can say, If still our reason runs another way, That private reason 'tis more just to curb, Than by disputes the public peace disturb For points obscure are of small use to learn, But common quiet is mankind's concern.
John Dryden
Image
Let cheerfulness on happy fortune wait.
John Dryden
Image
If one must be rejected, one succeed, make him my lord within whose faithful breast is fixed my image, and who loves me best.
John Dryden
Image
The conscience of a people is their power.
John Dryden
Image
As when the dove returning bore the mark Of earth restored to the long labouring ark The relics of mankind, secure at rest, Oped every window to receive the guest, And the fair bearer of the message bless'd.
John Dryden
Image
Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.
John Dryden
Image
Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.
John Dryden
Image
Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail And pity never ceases to be shown To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.
John Dryden
Image
Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.
John Dryden
Image
Pleasure never comes sincere to man but lent by heaven upon hard usury.
John Dryden
Image
When a man's life is under debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.
John Dryden
Image
What passion cannot music raise and quell!
John Dryden
Image
Fortune's unjust she ruins oft the brave, and him who should be victor, makes the slave.
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
Parting is worse than death it is death of love!
John Dryden
Image
I am devilishly afraid, that's certain but ... I'll sing, that I may seem valiant.
John Dryden
Image
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother ten, Man looks aloft and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.
John Dryden
Image
Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
John Dryden
Image
They think too little who talk too much.
John Dryden
Image
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.
John Dryden