Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does man her slave oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleasd to bless.
—John Dryden
Fool that I was, upon my eagle’s wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.
—John Dryden
Topics: Assistance, Help, Aid
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
—John Dryden
Topics: Genius
He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master.
—John Dryden
Topics: Trust, Secrecy
For present joys are more to flesh and blood than a dull prospect of a distant good.
—John Dryden
Topics: Joy, Excitement, Value of Time, Time Management
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
—John Dryden
Topics: Patriotism
Where trust is greatest, there treason is in its most horrid shape.
—John Dryden
The joys I have possessed are ever mine; out of thy reach, behind eternity, hid in the sacred treasure of the past, but blest remembrance brings them hourly back.
—John Dryden
Topics: Memory
Fortune befriends the bold.
—John Dryden
Topics: Danger, Risk, Boldness, Courage, Bravery
The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man; we naturally aim at happiness, and cannot bear to have it confined to our present being.
—John Dryden
Topics: Immortality
Invention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of Apollo, is raised higher than the rest.
—John Dryden
Topics: Invention
Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
—John Dryden
Topics: Insanity, Genius, Wit, Madness
Welcome as kindly showers to the long parched earth.
—John Dryden
Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, but genius must be born; and never can be taught.
—John Dryden
Topics: Genius
Honor is but an empty bubble.
—John Dryden
Topics: Honor
Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.
—John Dryden
Topics: Appetite
Ill news is winged with fate, and flies apace.
—John Dryden
Topics: News
Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today.
—John Dryden
Topics: Time, The Future, Tomorrow
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph, make atheists of mankind.
—John Dryden
Topics: Atheism
She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
—John Dryden
Topics: Sin
Go miser go, for money sell your soul. Trade wares for wares and trudge from pole to pole, So others may say when you are dead and gone. See what a vast estate he left his son.
—John Dryden
Topics: Misery, Money
Those wanting wit affect gravity, and go by the name of solid men.
—John Dryden
So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.
—John Dryden
Topics: Fanaticism
All things are by fate, but poor blind man sees but a part of the chain, the nearest link, his eyes not reaching to that equal beam which poises all above.
—John Dryden
Topics: Fate
Oh, give me liberty! for even were paradise my prison, still I should long to leap the crystal walls.
—John Dryden
Topics: Liberty
If you are for a merry jaunt I will try for once who can foot it farthest.
—John Dryden
Topics: Walking
None but the brave deserve the fair.
—John Dryden
Topics: Courage, Love
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
Topics: Truth
Mighty things from small beginnings grow.
—John Dryden
Topics: Power
Democracy is essentially anti-authoritarian—that is, it not only demands the right but imposes the responsibility of thinking for ourselves.
—John Dryden
Topics: Democracy
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Alexander Pope English Poet
- Francis Thompson English Poet
- Coventry Patmore English Writer
- Abraham Cowley English Poet
- Colley Cibber English Playwright
- John Milton English Poet
- Edmund Spenser English Poet
- Geoffrey Chaucer English Poet
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge English Poet
- John Masefield English Poet
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