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John Dryden

John Dryden Quotes

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Famous John Dryden Quotes

“So love with phantoms cheats our longing eyes, Which hourly seeing never satisfies; Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain, But wander o’er the lovely limbs in vain: Nor when the youthful pair more closely join, When hands in hands they lock, and thighs in thighs they twine, Just in the raging foam of full desire, When both press on, both murmur, both expire, They gripe, they squeeze, their humid tongues they dart, As each would force their way to t’other’s heart – In vain; they only cruise about the coast, For bodies cannot pierce, nor be in bodies lost.”

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Book:Lucretius his six books of epicurean philosophy and Manilius his five books containing a system of the ancient astronomy and astrology together with ... verse with notes by Mr. Tho. Creech
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“Want is a bitter and a hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood; Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been by need to full perfection brought. The daring of the soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit, and active diligence; Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives; And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of John Dryden (Illustrated)
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“Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.”

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Book:The Dramatick Works of John Dryden, Esq: Don Sebastian, king of Portugal. Amphitryon: or, The two Sosia's. Cleomenes, the Spartan heroe. King Arthur. Love triumphant
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“Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying. If all the world be worth the winning, Think, oh think it worth enjoying: Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee.”

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Book:Poetical Works: With a Memoir
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“He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.”

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Author:John Dryden
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