Top 400 John Dryden Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners. Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave; God cannot grant so much as they can crave.”

— John Dryden

252. “I am reading Jonson’s verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric...”

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

254. “The soft complaining flute, In dying notes, discovers The woes of hopeless lovers.”

— John Dryden

255. “I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze.”

— John Dryden

256. “What, start at this! when sixty years have spread. Their grey experience o’er thy hoary head? Is this the all observing age could gain? Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?”

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

258. “I feel my sinews slackened with the fright, and a cold sweat trills down all over my limbs, as if I were dissolving into water.”

— John Dryden

259. “He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit.”

— John Dryden

260. “Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.”

— John Dryden

261. “The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.”

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

263. “He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.”

— John Dryden

264. “From Harmony, from heav’nly Harmony. This universal Frame began.”

— John Dryden

265. “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

266. “Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words.”

— John Dryden

267. “All heiresses are beautiful.”

— John Dryden

268. “War seldom enters but where wealth allures.”

— John Dryden

269. “Imitation pleases, because it affords matter for inquiring into the truth or falsehood of imitation, by comparing its likeness or unlikeness with the original.”

— John Dryden

270. “The good we have enjoyed from Heaven’s free will, and shall we murmur to endure the ill?”

— John Dryden

271. “A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, and leave the luggage of good works behind.”

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

273. “Honor is but an empty bubble.”

— John Dryden

274. “To draw true beauty shows a master’s hand.”

— John Dryden

275. “And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.”

— John Dryden

276. “I never saw any good that came of telling truth.”

— John Dryden

277. “Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.”

— John Dryden

278. “Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne’er pardon who have done wrong.”

— John Dryden

279. “To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.”

— John Dryden

280. “Love is a passion which kindles honor into noble acts.”

— John Dryden

281. “Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?”

— John Dryden

282. “Restless at home, and ever prone to range.”

— John Dryden

283. “Whatever is, is in its causes just.”

— John Dryden

284. “Ever a glutton, at another’s cost, But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.”

— John Dryden

285. “Woman’s honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil.”

— John Dryden

286. “There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.”

— John Dryden

287. “New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.”

— John Dryden

288. “For danger levels man and brute And all are fellows in their need.”

— John Dryden

289. “The propriety of thoughts and words, which are the hidden beauties of a play, are but confusedly judged in the vehemence of action.”

— John Dryden

290. “By education most have been misled.”

— John Dryden

291. “So softly death succeeded life in her, She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.”

— John Dryden

292. “Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.”

— John Dryden

293. “I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.”

— John Dryden

294. “Uncertain whose the narrowest span, – the clown unread, or half-read gentleman.”

— John Dryden

295. “Love is a child that talks in broken language, yet then he speaks most plain.”

— John Dryden

296. “Pride – Lord of human kind.”

— John Dryden

297. “The province of the soul is large enough to fill up every cranny of your time, and leave you much to answer for if one wretch be damned by your neglect.”

— John Dryden

298. “Beauty is nothing else but a just accord and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution.”

— John Dryden

299. “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?”

— John Dryden

300. “While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.”

— John Dryden