Quote

Discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest for they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.

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
Nothing
Truest
Giving
Quarters
Enemies
Discover
Allow
Enemy
Complaisance
Opinion
Commonly
Give
Quarter

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How blessed is he, who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife! Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage, Enjoy'd his youth, and now enjoys his age: All who deserve his love, he makes his own And, to be lov'd himself, needs only to be known.
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Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.
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Lucky men are favorites of Heaven.
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Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.
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The good we have enjoyed from Heaven's free will, and shall we murmur to endure the ill?
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A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.
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He wants worth who dares not praise a foe.
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Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle.
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Nature meant me A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove, Fond without art, and kind without deceit.
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All empire is no more than power in trust.
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Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.
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Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.
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If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?
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My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.
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Order is the greatest grace.
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