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A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

-John Dryden

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A Thing Well Said

John Dryden

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A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

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Beauty, Like Ice, Our Footing Does Betray; Who Can Tread Sure On The Smooth, Slippery Way: Pleased With The Surface, We Glide Swiftly On, And See The Dangers That We Cannot Shun.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

Much Malice Mingled With A Little Wit Perhaps May Censure This Mysterious Writ.

Let Grace And Goodness Be The Principal Loadstone Of Thy Affections. For Love Which Hath Ends, Will Have An End; Whereas That Which Is Founded On True Virtue, Will Always Continue.

All The Learn'd Are Cowards By Profession.

He Who Trusts Secrets To A Servant Makes Him His Master

Keeping Secrets

An Ugly Woman In A Rich Habit Set Out With Jewels Nothing Can Become.

It's A Hard World, Neighbors, If A Man's Oath Must Be His Master.

For What Can Power Give More Than Food And Drink, To Live At Ease, And Not Be Bound To Think?

He With A Graceful Pride, While His Rider Every Hand Survey'd, Sprung Loose, And Flew Into An Escapade; Not Moving Forward, Yet With Every Bound Pressing, And Seeming Still To Quit His Ground.

Farewell, Too Little, And Too Lately Known, Whom I Began To Think And Call My Own.

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

I'm A Little Wounded, But I Am Not Slain; I Will Lay Me Down To Bleed A While. Then I'll Rise And Fight Again.

Good Heaven, Whose Darling Attribute We Find Is Boundless Grace, And Mercy To Mankind, Abhors The Cruel.

Grace And Mercy

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

All Flowers Will Droop In The Absence Of The Sun That Waked Their Sweets.

Every Language Is So Full Of Its Own Proprieties That What Is Beautiful In One Is Often Barbarous, Nay, Sometimes Nonsense, In Another.

When He Spoke, What Tender Words He Used! So Softly, That Like Flakes Of Feathered Snow, They Melted As They Fell.

No King Nor Nation One Moment Can Retard The Appointed Hour.

Beauty Is Nothing Else But A Just Accord And Mutual Harmony Of The Members, Animated By A Healthful Constitution.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

I Feel My Sinews Slackened With The Fright, And A Cold Sweat Trills Down All Over My Limbs, As If I Were Dissolving Into Water.

Youth, Beauty, Graceful Action Seldom Fail: But Common Interest Always Will Prevail; And Pity Never Ceases To Be Shown To Him Who Makes The People's Wrongs His Own.

Many Things Impossible To Thought Have Been By Need To Full Perfection Brought.

Uncertain Whose The Narrowest Span,--the Clown Unread, Or Half-read Gentleman.

Great Wits Are Sure To Madness Near Allied, And Thin Partitions Do Their Bounds Divide.

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

I Trade Both With The Living And The Dead, For The Enrichment Of Our Native Language.

Native Language

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

Anger Will Never Disappear So Long As Thoughts Of Resentment Are Cherished In The Mind. Anger Will Disappear Just As Soon As Thoughts Of Resentment Are Forgotten.

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

Affability, Mildness, Tenderness, And A Word Which I Would Fain Bring Back To Its Original Signification Of Virtue,--i Mean Good-nature,--are Of Daily Use; They Are The Bread Of Mankind And Staff Of Life.

Like Pilgrims To Th' Appointed Place We Tend; The World's An Inn, And Death The Journey's End.

How Easy It Is To Call Rogue And Villain, And That Wittily! But How Hard To Make A Man Appear A Fool, A Blockhead, Or A Knave, Without Using Any Of Those Opprobrious Terms! Tosparethegrossness Ofthenames, And To Dothe Thing Yet Moreseverely, Isto Drawa Full Face, And Tomake The Nose And Cheeks Stand Out, And Yet Not To Employ Any Depth Of Shadowing.

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

Thoughts Cannot Form Themselves In Words So Horrid As Can Express My Guilt.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

Discover The Opinion Of Your Enemies, Which Is Commonly The Truest; For They Will Give You No Quarter, And Allow Nothing To Complaisance.

By Education Most Have Been Misled.

Criticism, As It Was First Instituted By Aristotle, Was Meant As A Standard Of Judging Well; The Chiefest Part Of Which Is To Observe Those Excellencies Which Delight A Reasonable Reader.

And Nobler Is A Limited Command, Given By The Love Of All Your Native Land, Than A Successive Title, Long And Dark, Drawn From The Mouldy Rolls Of Noah's Ark.

Could Swell The Soul To Rage, Or Kindle Soft Desire.

For Granting We Have Sinned, And That The Offence Of Man Is Made Against Omnipotence, Some Price That Bears Proportion Must Be Paid, And Infinite With Infinite Be Weighed.

Fattened In Vice, So Callous And So Gross, He Sins And Sees Not, Senseless Of His Loss.

Inspire The Vocal Brass, Inspire; The World Is Past Its Infant Age: Arms And Honour, Arms And Honour, Set The Martial Mind On Fire, And Kindle Manly Rage.

For Mysterious Things Of Faith, Rely On The Proponent, Heaven's Authority.

Mysterious Things

What, Start At This! When Sixty Years Have Spread. Their Grey Experience O'er Thy Hoary Head? Is This The All Observing Age Could Gain? Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

All, As They Say, That Glitters Is Not Gold.

From Plots And Treasons Heaven Preserve My Years, But Save Me Most From My Petitioners. Unsatiate As The Barren Womb Or Grave; God Cannot Grant So Much As They Can Crave.

[t]he Famous Rules Which The French Call, Des Trois Unitez , Or, The Three Unities, Which Ought To Be Observ'd In Every Regular Play; Namely, Of Time, Place, And Action.

No Government Has Ever Been, Or Can Ever Be, Wherein Time-servers And Blockheads Will Not Be Uppermost.

Wit Will Shine Through The Harsh Cadence Of A Rugged Line.

Our Souls Sit Close And Silently Within, And Their Own Web From Their Own Entrails Spin; And When Eyes Meet Far Off, Our Sense Is Such, That, Spider-like, We Feel The Tenderest Touch.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

Pity Melts The Mind To Love.

Truth Is The Foundation Of All Knowledge And The Cement Of All Societies.

The Gods, (if Gods To Goodness Are Inclined If Acts Of Mercy Touch Their Heavenly Mind), And, More Than All The Gods, Your Generous Heart, Conscious Of Worth, Requite Its Own Desert!

Having Mourned Your Sin, For Outward Eden Lost, Find Paradise Within.

Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

A Lively Faith Will Bear Aloft The Mind, And Leave The Luggage Of Good Works Behind.

To Take Up Half On Trust, And Half To Try, Name It Not Faith But Bungling Bigotry.

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.

While I Am Compassed Round With Mirth, My Soul Lies Hid In Shades Of Grief, Whence, Like The Bird Of Night, With Half-shut Eyes, She Peeps, And Sickens At The Sight Of Day.

Our Vows Are Heard Betimes! And Heaven Takes Care To Grant, Before We Can Conclude The Prayer: Preventing Angels Met It Half The Way, And Sent Us Back To Praise, Who Came To Pray.

Bets At First Were Fool-traps, Where The Wise Like Spiders Lay In Ambush For The Flies.

Errors Like Straws Upon The Surface Flow, Who Would Search For Pearls To Be Grateful For Often Must Dive Below.

A Lazy Frost, A Numbness Of The Mind.

To Draw True Beauty Shows A Master's Hand.

My Right Eye Itches, Some Good Luck Is Near.

But Shakespeare's Magic Could Not Copied Be; Within That Circle None Durst Walk But He.

Faith Is To Believe What You Do Not Yet See: The Reward For This Faith Is To See What You Believe. Thus All Below Is Strength, And All Above Is Grace.

Even Kings But Play; And When Their Part Is Done, Some Other, Worse Or Better, Mounts The Throne.

Virtue In Distress, And Vice In Triumph Make Atheists Of Mankind.

Genius Must Be Born, And Never Can Be Taught.

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

The Propriety Of Thoughts And Words, Which Are The Hidden Beauties Of A Play, Are But Confusedly Judged In The Vehemence Of Action.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

A Man May Be Capable, As Jack Ketch's Wife Said Of His Servant, Of A Plain Piece Of Work, A Bare Hanging; But To Makea Malefactordiesweetly Was Only Belonging Toher Husband.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

Men's Virtues I Have Commended As Freely As I Have Taxed Their Crimes.

The Blushing Beauties Of A Modest Maid.

Democracy Is Essentially Anti-authoritarian--that Is, It Not Only Demands The Right But Imposes The Responsibility Of Thinking For Ourselves.

One Of The Greatest, Most Noble, And Most Sublime Poems Which Either This Age Or Nation Has Produced.

We Can Never Be Grieved For Their Miseries Who Are Thoroughly Wicked, And Have Thereby Justly Called Their Calamities On Themselves.

Let Cheerfulness On Happy Fortune Wait.

I Maintain, Against The Enemies Of The Stage, That Patterns Of Piety, Decently Represented, May Second The Precepts.

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

But Wild Ambition Loves To Slide, Not Stand, And Fortune's Ice Prefers To Virtue's Land.

We Find Few Historians Who Have Been Diligent Enough In Their Search For Truth; It Is Their Common Method To Take On Trust What They Help Distribute To The Public; By Which Means A Falsehood Once Received From A Famed Writer Becomes Traditional To Posterity.

A Woman's Counsel Brought Us First To Woe, And Made Her Man His Paradise Forego, Where At Heart's Ease He Liv'd; And Might Have Been As Free From Sorrow As He Was From Sin.

None Would Live Past Years Again, Yet All Hope Pleasure In What Yet Remain; And, From The Dregs Of Life, Think To Receive, What The First Sprightly Running Could Not Give.

Such Subtle Covenants Shall Be Made,till Peace It Self Is War In Masquerade.

So Over Violent, Or Over Civil That Every Man With Him Was God Or Devil.

I Have A Soul That Like An Ample Shield Can Take In All, And Verge Enough For More.

There Is An Inimitable Grace In Virgil's Words, And In Them Principally Consists That Beauty Which Gives So Inexpressible A Pleasure To Him Who Best Understands Their Force. This Diction Of His, I Must Once Again Say, Is Never To Be Copied; And Since It Cannot, He Will Appear But Lame In The Best Translation.

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

Fame Then Was Cheap, And The First Comer Sped; And They Have Kept It Since By Being Dead.

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

At Home The Hateful Names Of Parties Cease, And Factious Souls Are Wearied Into Peace.

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

And After Hearing What Our Church Can Say, If Still Our Reason Runs Another Way, That Private Reason 'tis More Just To Curb, Than By Disputes The Public Peace Disturb; For Points Obscure Are Of Small Use To Learn, But Common Quiet Is Mankind's Concern.

Dreams Are But Interludes That Fancy Makes... Sometimes Forgotten Things, Long Cast Behind Rush Forward In The Brain, And Come To Mind.

Forgotten Things

If You Have Lived, Take Thankfully The Past. Make, As You Can, The Sweet Remembrance Last.

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

I Saw Myself The Lambent Easy Light Gild The Brown Horror, And Dispel The Night.

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

Sure There Is None But Fears A Future State; And When The Most Obdurate Swear They Do Not, Their Trembling Hearts Belie Their Boasting Tongues.

How Easy 'tis, When Destiny Proves Kind, With Full-spread Sails To Run Before The Wind!

Government Itself At Length Must Fall To Nature's State, Where All Have Right To All.

Is It Not Evident, In These Last Hundred Years (when The Study Of Philosophy Has Been The Business Of All The Virtuosi In Christendome) That Almost A New Nature Has Been Revealed To Us? That More Errours Of The School Have Been Detected, More Useful Experiments In Philosophy Have Been Made, More Noble Secrets In Opticks, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, Discover'd, Than In All Those Credulous And Doting Ages From Aristotle To Us? So True It Is That Nothing Spreads More Fast Than Science, When Rightly And Generally Cultivated.

Sculptors Are Obliged To Follow The Manners Of The Painters, And To Make Many Ample Folds, Which Are Unsufferable Hardness, And More Like A Rock Than A Natural Garment.

If The Faults Of Men In Orders Are Only To Be Judged Among Themselves, They Are All In Some Sort Parties; For, Since They Say The Honour Of Their Order Is Concerned In Every Member Of It, How Can We Be Sure That They Will Be Impartial Judges?

Good Sense And Good-nature Are Never Separated, Though The Ignorant World Has Thought Otherwise. Good-nature, By Which I Mean Beneficence And Candor, Is The Product Of Right Reason.

He Is The Very Janus Of Poets; He Wears Almost Everywhere Two Faces; And You Have Scarce Begun To Admire The One, Ere You Despise The Other.

From Harmony, From Heav'nly Harmony. This Universal Frame Began.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

Imagination In A Poet Is A Faculty So Wild And Lawless That, Like A High Ranging Spaniel, It Must Have Clogs Tied To It, Lest It Outrun The Judgment. The Great Easiness Of Blank Verse Renders The Poet Too Luxuriant. He Is Tempted To Say Many Things Which Might Better Be Omitted, Or, At Least Shut Up In Fewer Words.

Sure There's Contagion In The Tears Of Friends.

'tis A Good Thing To Laugh At Any Rate; And If A Straw Can Tickle A Man, It Is An Instrument Of Happiness.

Whistling To Keep Myself From Being Afraid.

Moderate Sorrow Fits Vulgar Love, And For A Vulgar Man: But I Have Lov'd With Such Transcendent Passion, I Soar'd, At First, Quite Out Of Reason's View, And Now Am Lost Above It.

Ill News Is Wing'd With Fate, And Flies Apace.

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

Silence In Times Of Suffering Is The Best.

Freedom Which In No Other Land Will Thrive, Freedom An English Subject's Sole Prerogative.

Death Only This Mysterious Truth Unfolds, The Mighty Soul How Small A Body Holds.

And, Dying, Bless The Hand That Gave The Blow.

Woman's Honor Is Nice As Ermine; It Will Not Bear A Soil.

My Heart's So Full Of Joy, That I Shall Do Some Wild Extravagance Of Love In Public; And The Foolish World, Which Knows Not Tenderness, Will Think Me Mad.

Chaucer Followed Nature Everywhere, But Was Never So Bold To Go Beyond Her.

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

Secret Guilt Is By Silence Revealed.

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

Thou Tyrant, Tyrant Jealousy, Thou Tyrant Of The Mind!

Love Is A Child That Talks In Broken Language, Yet Then He Speaks Most Plain.

The Sooner You Treat Your Son As A Man, The Sooner He Will Be One.

Fool, Not To Know That Love Endures No Tie, And Jove But Laughs At Lovers' Perjury.

So Softly Death Succeeded Life In Her, She Did But Dream Of Heaven, And She Was There.

Pleasure Never Comes Sincere To Man; But Lent By Heaven Upon Hard Usury.

Luxurious Kings Are To Their People Lost, They Live Like Drones, Upon The Public Cost.

Music, Music For A While Shall All Your Cares Beguile. Alexander's Feast

If Thou Dost Still Retain The Same Ill Habits, The Same Follies, Too, Still Thou Art Bound To Vice, And Still A Slave.

When I Consider Life, 'tis All A Cheat; Yet, Fooled With Hope, Men Favour The Deceit; Trust On, And Think Tomorrow Will Repay. Tomorrow's Falser Than The Former Day.

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth, Our Appetites As Apt To Change As Theirs, And Full As Craving Too, And Full As Vain.

Virgil And Horace [were] The Severest Writers Of The Severest Age.

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

So Poetry, Which Is In Oxford Made An Art, In London Only Is A Trade.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

Be Slow To Resolve, But Quick In Performance.

She, Though In Full-blown Flower Of Glorious Beauty, Grows Cold Even In The Summer Of Her Age.

We First Make Our Habits, And Then Our Habits Make Us.

Set All Things In Their Own Peculiar Place, And Know That Order Is The Greatest Grace.

Words Are But Pictures Of Our Thoughts.

You See Through Love, And That Deludes Your Sight, As What Is Straight Seems Crooked Through The Water.

When Misfortune Is Asleep, Let No One Wake Her.

The Winds That Never Moderation Knew, Afraid To Blow Too Much, Too Faintly Blew; Or Out Of Breath With Joy, Could Not Enlarge Their Straighten'd Lungs Or Conscious Of Their Charge.

Thou Spring'st A Leak Already In Thy Crown, A Flaw Is In Thy Ill-bak'd Vessel Found; 'tis Hollow, And Returns A Jarring Sound, Yet Thy Moist Clay Is Pliant To Command, Unwrought, And Easy To The Potter's Hand: Now Take The Mould; Now Bend Thy Mind To Feel The First Sharp Motions Of The Forming Wheel.

Boldness Is A Mask For Fear, However Great.

Boldness And Courage

Trust On And Think To-morrow Will Repay; To-morrow's Falser Than The Former Day; Lies Worse; And While It Says, We Shall Be Blest With Some New Joys, Cuts Off What We Possest.

For All The Happiness Mankind Can Gain Is Not In Pleasure, But In Rest From Pain.

The Trumpet's Loud Clangor Excites Us To Arms.

Better One Suffer Than A Nation Grieve.

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Not Judging Truth To Be In Nature Better Than Falsehood, But Setting A Value Upon Both According To Interest.

They First Condemn That First Advised The Ill.

Seek Not To Know What Must Not Be Reveal, For Joy Only Flows Where Fate Is Most Concealed. A Busy Person Would Find Their Sorrows Much More; If Future Fortunes Were Known Before!

Order Is The Greatest Grace.

When A Man's Life Is Under Debate, The Judge Can Ne'er Too Long Deliberate.

Who Climbs The Grammar-tree, Distinctly Knows Where Noun, And Verb, And Participle Grows.

The Longest Tyranny That Ever Sway'd Was That Wherein Our Ancestors Betray'd Their Free-born Reason To The Stagirite [aristotle], And Made His Torch Their Universal Light. So Truth, While Only One Suppli'd The State, Grew Scarce, And Dear, And Yet Sophisticate.

Here Lies My Wife: Here Let Her Lie! Now She's At Rest, And So Am I.

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

For Thee, Sweet Month; The Groves Green Liveries Wear. If Not The First, The Fairest Of The Year; For Thee The Graces Lead The Dancing Hours, And Nature's Ready Pencil Paints The Flowers. When Thy Short Reign Is Past, The Feverish Sun The Sultry Tropic Fears, And Moves More Slowly On.

As When The Dove Returning Bore The Mark Of Earth Restored To The Long Labouring Ark; The Relics Of Mankind, Secure At Rest, Oped Every Window To Receive The Guest, And The Fair Bearer Of The Message Bless'd.

All Objects Lose By Too Familiar A View.

A Good Conscience Is A Port Which Is Landlocked On Every Side, Where No Winds Can Possibly Invade. There A Man May Not Only See His Own Image, But That Of His Maker, Clearly Reflected From The Undisturbed Waters.

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

One Cannot Say He Wanted Wit, But Rather That He Was Frugal Of It.

Secret Guilt By Silence Is Betrayed.

More Liberty Begets Desire Of More; The Hunger Still Increases With The Store

Not Heav'n Itself Upon The Past Has Pow'r; But What Has Been, Has Been, And I Have Had My Hour.

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

Revealed Religion First Informed Thy Sight, And Reason Saw Not Till Faith Sprung To Light.

Heaven Be Thanked, We Live In Such An Age, When No Man Dies For Love, But On The Stage.

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.

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

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.

Time Glides With Undiscover'd Haste; The Future But A Length Behind The Past.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

Treason Is Greatest Where Trust Is Greatest.

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