Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Dryden (English Poet)

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 Trinity College-Cambridge. 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

Ill news is winged with fate, and flies apace.
John Dryden
Topics: News

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
John Dryden
Topics: Life, Living

There’s none but fears a future state; and when the most obdurate swear they do not, their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.
John Dryden

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
John Dryden
Topics: Genius

Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.
John Dryden
Topics: War

A mob is the scum that rises upmost when the nation boils.
John Dryden

He wants worth who dares not praise a foe.
John Dryden
Topics: Praise

Woman’s honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil.
John Dryden
Topics: Honor, Woman

These are the effects of doting age: vain doubts, idle cares and overcaution.
John Dryden
Topics: Age, Aging

My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.
John Dryden
Topics: Guilt

He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
John Dryden
Topics: Death, Dying

How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.
John Dryden
Topics: Valor

If you are for a merry jaunt I will try for once who can foot it farthest.
John Dryden
Topics: Walking

Repentance is but want of power to sin.
John Dryden
Topics: Repentance, Forgiveness

The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.
John Dryden
Topics: Parents, Parenting

All objects lose by too familiar a view.
John Dryden
Topics: Familiarity, Knowledge

Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.
John Dryden
Topics: Love

The wise, for cure, on exercise depend.—Better to hunt in fields for health unbought than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
John Dryden
Topics: Exercise

All heiresses are beautiful.
John Dryden
Topics: Inheritance, Wealth

It is better not to be than to be unhappy.
John Dryden
Topics: Unhappiness

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, The Present, Contentment, Time Management

There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.
John Dryden
Topics: Sanity

The sun, when he from noon declines, and with abated heat less fiercely shines; seems to grow milder as he goes away.
John Dryden

Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
John Dryden
Topics: Politics

Thoughts cannot form themselves in words so horrid As can express my guilt.
John Dryden
Topics: Guilt

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

How can finite grasp infinity?
John Dryden
Topics: Reason

Such subtle Covenants shall be made,
Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade.
John Dryden

A foundation of good sense, and a cultivation of learning, are required to give a seasoning to retirement, and make us taste its blessings.
John Dryden
Topics: Retirement

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
John Dryden
Topics: Sin

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