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
Jealousy is like a polished glass held to the lips when life is in doubt; if there be breath it will catch the damp and show it.
—John Dryden
Topics: Jealousy
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
—John Dryden
Topics: Maidenhood
The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind’s bribe.
—John Dryden
Topics: Generosity
The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower’d with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham’d, though foil’d, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.
—John Dryden
Topics: Brave
Silence in times of suffering is the best.
—John Dryden
Topics: Silence
What brutal mischief sits upon his brow! He may be honest, but he looks damnation.
—John Dryden
Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.
—John Dryden
Topics: Guilt
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
—John Dryden
The florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the passions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the soul by showing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or less; but instruction is to be given by showing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth.
—John Dryden
Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.
—John Dryden
Topics: Youth
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
—John Dryden
Topics: Order
Those who believe that the praises which arise from valor are superior to those which proceed from any other virtues have not considered.
—John Dryden
Topics: Valor
Humility and resignation are our prime virtues.
—John Dryden
Topics: Humility
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
It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness. Beasts can weep when they suffer, but they cannot laugh.
—John Dryden
Topics: Laughter
Beware the fury of a patient man.
—John Dryden
Topics: Patience, Anger
She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
—John Dryden
Topics: Sin
Seas are the fields of combat for the winds, but when they sweep along some flowery coast, their wings move mildly, and their rage is lost.
—John Dryden
Plots, true or false, are necessary things, to raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.
—John Dryden
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution
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
He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
—John Dryden
Topics: Plagiarism
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph, make atheists of mankind.
—John Dryden
Topics: Atheism
Self-defense is Nature’s oldest law.
—John Dryden
Topics: Self-Discovery, Security, Defense
A mob is the scum that rises upmost when the nation boils.
—John Dryden
Beauty is nothing else but a just accord and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution.
—John Dryden
Topics: Harmony
War is the trade of Kings.
—John Dryden
Topics: War
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: Death and Dying, Fate
Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
—John Dryden
Topics: Friendship
If you have lived, take thankfully the past.
—John Dryden
Topics: Gratitude
Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!
—John Dryden
Topics: Opportunity
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