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John Dryden

John Dryden Quotes

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Famous John Dryden Quotes

“In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land.”

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Author:John Dryden
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“A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.”

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Book:Selections from the poetry of Dryden, including his plays and translations. [The editor's preface signed: C. B., i.e. Charles Bathurst.]
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“Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad.”

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Book:Poetical Works: Containing Original Poems, Tales, and Translations
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“Is it not evident, in these last hundred years (when the Study of Philosophy has been the business of all the Virtuosi in Christendome) that almost a new Nature has been revealed to us? that more errours of the School have been detected, more useful Experiments in Philosophy have been made, more Noble Secrets in Opticks, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, discover'd, than in all those credulous and doting Ages from Aristotle to us? So true it is that nothing spreads more fast than Science, when rightly and generally cultivated.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of John Dryden (Illustrated)
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“The longest tyranny that ever sway'd Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle], And made his torch their universal light. So truth, while only one suppli'd the state, Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.”

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Book:The Poems of John Dryden, Ed., with an Introduction and Textual Notes
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