Top 400 John Dryden Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.”

— John Dryden

302. “Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.”

— John Dryden

303. “The first is the law, the last prerogative.”

— John Dryden

304. “He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.”

— John Dryden

305. “Having mourned your sin, for outward Eden lost, find paradise within.”

— John Dryden

306. “Humility and resignation are our prime virtues.”

— John Dryden

307. “Men are but children of a larger growth.”

— John Dryden

308. “The unhappy man, who once has trail’d a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.”

— John Dryden

309. “Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem.”

— John Dryden

310. “For lawful power is still superior found, When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.”

— John Dryden

311. “I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.”

— John Dryden

312. “The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted.”

— John Dryden

313. “With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek; And then thou kemb’st the tuzzes on thy cheek: Of these, my barbers take a costly care.”

— John Dryden

314. “All authors to their own defects are blind.”

— John Dryden

315. “Of all the tyrannies on human kind the worst is that which persecutes the mind.”

— John Dryden

316. “He made all countries where he came his own.”

— John Dryden

317. “Swift was the race, but short the time to run.”

— John Dryden

318. “Maintain your post: That’s all the fame you need; For ’tis impossible you should proceed.”

— John Dryden

319. “Criticism is now become mere hangman’s work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.”

— John Dryden

320. “My right eye itches, some good luck is near.”

— John Dryden

321. “Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.”

— John Dryden

322. “They that possess the prince possess the laws.”

— John Dryden

323. “Bets at first were fool-traps, where the wise like spiders lay in ambush for the flies.”

— John Dryden

324. “Love either finds equality or makes it.”

— John Dryden

325. “Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.”

— John Dryden

326. “So poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade.”

— John Dryden

327. “As one that neither seeks, nor shuns his foe.”

— John Dryden

328. “Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.”

— John Dryden

329. “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

330. “Fowls, by winter forced, forsake the floods, and wing their hasty flight to happier lands.”

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

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

— John Dryden

333. “And he, who servilely creeps after sense, Is safe, but ne’er will reach an excellence.”

— John Dryden

334. “Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.”

— John Dryden

335. “Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.”

— John Dryden

336. “Accurst ambition, how dearly I have bought you.”

— John Dryden

337. “Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection; and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies; the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward.”

— John Dryden

338. “Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.”

— John Dryden

339. “Men’s virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.”

— John Dryden

340. “Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.”

— John Dryden

341. “And that one hunting, which the Devil design’d For one fair female, lost him half the kind.”

— John Dryden

342. “Was there no milder way but the Small Pox, The very filth’ness of Pandora’s Box?”

— John Dryden

343. “For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.”

— John Dryden

344. “The winds are out of breath.”

— John Dryden

345. “Repentance is but want of power to sin.”

— John Dryden

346. “Few know the use of life before ’tis past.”

— John Dryden

347. “More liberty begets desire of more; The hunger still increases with the store.”

— John Dryden

348. “Even kings but play; and when their part is done, some other, worse or better, mounts the throne.”

— John Dryden

349. “Light sufferings give us leisure to complain.”

— John Dryden

350. “Let cheerfulness on happy fortune wait.”

— John Dryden