Top 400 John Dryden Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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

102. “Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today.”

— John Dryden

103. “Merit challenges envy.”

— John Dryden

104. “A thing well said will be wit in all languages.”

— John Dryden

105. “Shakespeare was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of the books to read nature; he looked inward, and found her there.”

— John Dryden

106. “A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch’s wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to makea malefactordiesweetly was only belonging toher husband.”

— John Dryden

107. “None would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And, from the dregs of life, think to receive, What the first sprightly running could not give.”

— John Dryden

108. “Jealousy’s a proof of love, But ’tis a weak and unavailing medicine; It puts out the disease and makes it show, But has no power to cure.”

— John Dryden

109. “Tis Fate that flings the dice, And as she flings Of kings makes peasants, And of peasants kings.”

— John Dryden

110. “Mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.”

— John Dryden

111. “He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.”

— John Dryden

112. “When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.”

— John Dryden

113. “Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.”

— John Dryden

114. “My love’s a noble madness.”

— John Dryden

115. “Even victors are by victories undone.”

— John Dryden

116. “But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand, And Fortune’s ice prefers to Virtue’s land.”

— John Dryden

117. “For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.”

— John Dryden

118. “None are so busy as the fool and the knave.”

— John Dryden

119. “A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.”

— John Dryden

120. “The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race.”

— John Dryden

121. “For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.”

— John Dryden

122. “Ah, how sweet it is to love! Ah, how gay is young Desire! And what pleasing pains we prove When we first approach Love’s fire!”

— John Dryden

123. “Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.”

— John Dryden

124. “Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.”

— John Dryden

125. “Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov’d with such transcendent passion, I soar’d, at first, quite out of reason’s view, And now am lost above it.”

— John Dryden

126. “They say everything in the world is good for something.”

— John Dryden

127. “Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.”

— John Dryden

128. “Ye moon and stars, bear witness to the truth.”

— John Dryden

129. “Chaucer followed Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her.”

— John Dryden

130. “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

131. “One of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.”

— John Dryden

132. “Be secret and discreet; the fairy favors are lost when not concealed.”

— John Dryden

133. “Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age, When no man dies for love, but on the stage.”

— John Dryden

134. “Love is love’s reward.”

— John Dryden

135. “By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man.”

— John Dryden

136. “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.”

— John Dryden

137. “Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.”

— John Dryden

138. “Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.”

— John Dryden

139. “Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.”

— John Dryden

140. “Government itself at length must fall To nature’s state, where all have right to all.”

— John Dryden

141. “Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!”

— John Dryden

Featured in: Strong Quotes

142. “It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.”

— John Dryden

143. “He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master.”

— John Dryden

144. “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

145. “Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.”

— John Dryden

146. “Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.”

— John Dryden

147. “He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.”

— John Dryden

148. “Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.”

— John Dryden

149. “My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.”

— John Dryden

150. “War is the trade of kings.”

— John Dryden