John Dryden (1631–1700) was an English poet, literary critic, and playwright who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden. He wrote nearly 30 plays and was one of the great dramatists of the Augustan Age.
Born in Aldwinkle All Saints, Northamptonshire, Dryden was educated at Westminster School and Cambridge’s Trinity College. He became known for his Heroic Stanzas (1658) on General Oliver Cromwell’s death. It was tactfully followed by Astraea Redux (1660,) praising King Charles II. Dryden was the first Poet Laureate 1668–88 when King James II was ousted in the Glorious Revolution.
Dryden’s other poems include Annus Mirabilis (1667,) the verse satires Absalom and Achitophel (1681,) the religious allegory The Hind and the Panther (1687,) and the ode Alexander’s Feast (1693.)
Dryden is best known for his outstanding plays, including Marriage à la mode (comedy, 1673,) All for Love (a tragedy based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, 1678.) His final work, Fables, Ancient and Modern (1699,) consisting of interpretations of Geoffrey Chaucer, Ovid, and Giovanni Boccaccio, continues to be popular.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Dryden
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
—John Dryden
Topics: Politics
A knock-down argument; ’tis but a word and a blow.
—John Dryden
Topics: Arguments
Love is love’s reward.
—John Dryden
Topics: Love
Nor is the people’s judgment always true: the most may err as grossly as the few.
—John Dryden
Topics: Fashion, Democracy
The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
—John Dryden
Topics: Parents, Parenting
Not to ask is not be denied.
—John Dryden
Topics: Silence
Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.
—John Dryden
Topics: Reason
Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.
—John Dryden
Topics: Temptation
If you have lived, take thankfully the past.
—John Dryden
Topics: Gratitude
I have not joyed an hour since you departed, for public miseries, and for private fears; but this blest meeting has o’erpaid them all.
—John Dryden
Topics: Meeting
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
—John Dryden
Topics: Romance, Absence, Love
Those who have employed the study of history, as they ought, for their instruction, for the regulation of their private manners, and the management of public affairs, must agree with me that it is the most pleasant school of wisdom.
—John Dryden
Topics: History
Most confidence has still most cause to doubt.
—John Dryden
Topics: Temptation
Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.
—John Dryden
Topics: Worry, Satisfaction, Fear, Happiness, Anxiety, The Future, Tomorrow
For they conquer who believe they can.
—John Dryden
Topics: Confidence, Assurance
So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.
—John Dryden
Topics: Fanaticism
Be slow to resolve, but quick in performance.
—John Dryden
Topics: Decisions
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
There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.
—John Dryden
Topics: Merit
Self-defense is Nature’s eldest law.
—John Dryden
Topics: Defense, Security
Such subtle Covenants shall be made,
Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade.
—John Dryden
How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.
—John Dryden
Topics: Valor
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
—John Dryden
Topics: Plagiarism
The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction, and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician is to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.
—John Dryden
They never pardon who commit the wrong.
—John Dryden
Topics: Forgiveness
Beauty is nothing else but a just accord and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution.
—John Dryden
Topics: Harmony
These are the effects of doting age: vain doubts, idle cares and overcaution.
—John Dryden
Topics: Age, Aging
Possess your soul with patience.
—John Dryden
Topics: Patience
Good sense and good nature are never separated; and good nature is the product of right reason.—It makes allowance for the failings of others by considering that there is nothing perfect in mankind; and by distinguishing that which comes nearest to excellence, though not absolutely free from faults, will certainly produce candor in judging.
—John Dryden
Topics: Reason
Men are but children of a larger growth; our appetites are as apt to change as theirs, and full as craving, too, and full as vain.
—John Dryden
Topics: Maturity, Man
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: Aid, Help, Assistance
Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.
—John Dryden
Topics: Guilt
Fortune befriends the bold.
—John Dryden
Topics: Boldness, Danger, Courage, Bravery, Risk
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey;
This Flecknoe found, who like Augustus young
Was call’d to empire, and had govern’d long:
In prose and verse, was own’d, without dispute
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.
—John Dryden
Topics: Fate, Death and Dying
None but the brave deserve the fair.
—John Dryden
Topics: Love, Courage
Nature meant me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit.
—John Dryden
Topics: Marriage, Wives
He who purposes to be an author, should first be a student.
—John Dryden
The gems of heaven, that gild night’s sable throne.
—John Dryden
Topics: Stars
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
—John Dryden
Topics: Happiness, Contentment, The Present, Time Management
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph, make atheists of mankind.
—John Dryden
Topics: Atheism
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