Top 400 John Dryden Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “The elephant is never won by anger; nor must that man who would reclaim a lion take him by the teeth.”

— John Dryden

52. “Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.”

— John Dryden

53. “Politicians neither love nor hate.”

— John Dryden

54. “The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.”

— John Dryden

55. “Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.”

— John Dryden

56. “Learn to write well, or not to write at all.”

— John Dryden

57. “All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.”

— John Dryden

58. “We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.”

— John Dryden

59. “And love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.”

— John Dryden

60. “Possess your soul with patience.”

— John Dryden

61. “But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.”

— John Dryden

62. “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

63. “The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun, Is Nature’s eye.”

— John Dryden

64. “Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.”

— John Dryden

65. “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.”

— John Dryden

66. “But love’s a malady without a cure.”

— John Dryden

67. “What passion cannot music raise and quell!”

— John Dryden

68. “God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.”

— John Dryden

69. “And plenty makes us poor.”

— John Dryden

70. “The World to Bacon does not only owe it’s present knowledge, but its future too.”

— John Dryden

71. “Love is not in our choice but in our fate.”

— John Dryden

72. “An horrible stillness first invades our ear, And in that silence we the tempest fear.”

— John Dryden

73. “All delays are dangerous in war.”

— John Dryden

74. “Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, – I mean good-nature, – are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.”

— John Dryden

75. “Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.”

— John Dryden

76. “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

77. “Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.”

— John Dryden

78. “Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.”

— John Dryden

79. “All empire is no more than power in trust.”

— John Dryden

80. “When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!”

— John Dryden

81. “Good sense and good nature are never separated; and good nature is the product of right reason.”

— John Dryden

82. “To die is landing on some distant shore.”

— John Dryden

83. “Order is the greatest grace.”

— John Dryden

84. “The trumpet’s loud clangor Excites us to arms.”

— John Dryden

85. “Parting is worse than death; it is death of love!”

— John Dryden

86. “Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.”

— John Dryden

Featured in: Strong Quotes

87. “Damn’d neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.”

— John Dryden

88. “Deathless laurel is the victor’s due.”

— John Dryden

89. “Take the goods the gods provide thee.”

— John Dryden

90. “Prodigious actions may as well be done, by weaver’s issue, as the prince’s son.”

— John Dryden

91. “The conscience of a people is their power.”

— John Dryden

92. “That gloomy outside, like a rusty chest, contains the shoring treasure of a soul resolved and brave.”

— John Dryden

93. “He who proposes to be an author should first be a student.”

— John Dryden

94. “All objects lose by too familiar a view.”

— John Dryden

95. “We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.”

— John Dryden

96. “You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water.”

— John Dryden

97. “Music is inarticulate poesy.”

— John Dryden

98. “Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.”

— John Dryden

99. “The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.”

— John Dryden

100. “Seas are the fields of combat for the winds; but when they sweep along some flowery coast, their wings move mildly, and their rage is lost.”

— John Dryden