Top 400 John Dryden Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “The blushing beauties of a modest maid.”

— John Dryden

202. “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

203. “Trust reposed in noble natures obliges them the more.”

— John Dryden

204. “But ’tis the talent of our English nation, Still to be plotting some new reformation.”

— John Dryden

205. “As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes.”

— John Dryden

206. “With how much ease believe we what we wish!”

— John Dryden

207. “Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own.”

— John Dryden

208. “How easy ’tis, when Destiny proves kind, With full-spread sails to run before the wind!”

— John Dryden

209. “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

210. “All habits gather by unseen degrees.”

— John Dryden

211. “Repartee is the soul of conversation.”

— John Dryden

212. “The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.”

— John Dryden

213. “When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.”

— John Dryden

214. “What judgment I had increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or reject; to run them into verse or to give them the other harmony of prose.”

— John Dryden

215. “Ill fortune seldom comes alone.”

— John Dryden

216. “He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.”

— John Dryden

217. “No king nor nation one moment can retard the appointed hour.”

— John Dryden

218. “Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows.”

— John Dryden

219. “Not Heav’n itself upon the past has pow’r; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.”

— John Dryden

220. “The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind’s great bribe.”

— John Dryden

221. “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.”

— John Dryden

222. “Nature meant for me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit.”

— John Dryden

223. “Trust on and think To-morrow will repay; To-morrow’s falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new Joys, cuts off what we possest.”

— John Dryden

224. “I saw myself the lambent easy light Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night.”

— John Dryden

225. “Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.”

— John Dryden

226. “And nobler is a limited command, Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah’s Ark.”

— John Dryden

227. “For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.”

— John Dryden

228. “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

229. “So the false spider, when her nets are spread, deep ambushed in her silent den does lie.”

— John Dryden

230. “When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear.”

— John Dryden

231. “Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took; Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass’d.”

— John Dryden

232. “For all have not the gift of martyrdom.”

— John Dryden

233. “Bacchus ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain. Bachus’s blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure, Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure- Sweet is pleasure after pain.”

— John Dryden

234. “Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.”

— John Dryden

235. “Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.”

— John Dryden

236. “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

237. “What I have left is from my native spring; I’ve still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.”

— John Dryden

238. “Better one suffer than a nation grieve.”

— John Dryden

239. “There is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.”

— John Dryden

240. “Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.”

— John Dryden

241. “Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck.”

— John Dryden

242. “Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.”

— John Dryden

243. “Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!”

— John Dryden

244. “Silence in times of suffering is the best.”

— John Dryden

245. “God never made his work for man to mend.”

— John Dryden

246. “All flowers will droop in the absence of the sun that waked their sweets.”

— John Dryden

247. “Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.”

— John Dryden

248. “For those whom God to ruin has design’d, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.”

— John Dryden

249. “Reason saw not, till Faith sprung the Light.”

— John Dryden

250. “I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.”

— John Dryden