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Calms Appear, When Storms Are Past; Love Will Have His Hour At Last: Nature Is My Kindly Care; Mars Destroys, And I Repair; Take Me, Take Me, While You May, Venus Comes Not Ev'ry Day.

-John Dryden

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Calms Appear, When Storms

John Dryden

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Calms Appear, When Storms Are Past; Love Will Have His Hour At Last: Nature Is My Kindly Care; Mars Destroys, And I Repair; Take Me, Take Me, While You May, Venus Comes Not Ev'ry Day.

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

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

Tomorrow Do Thy Worst, For I Have Lived Today: Be Fair Or Foul Or Rain Or Shine, The Joys I Have Possessed In Spite Of Fate Are Mine. Not Heaven Itself Upon The Past Has Power; But What Has Been Has Been, And I Have Had My Hour.

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.

Of All The Tyrannies On Human Kind The Worst Is That Which Persecutes The Mind.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

My Right Eye Itches, Some Good Luck Is Near.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

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

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.

Joy Rul'd The Day, And Love The Night.

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Music Is Inarticulate Poesy.

Thus All Below Is Strength, And All Above Is Grace.

There Is A Proud Modesty In Merit.

Let Those Find Fault Whose Wit's So Very Small, They've Need To Show That They Can Think At All; Errors, Like Straws, Upon The Surface Flow; He Who Would Search For Pearls, Must Dive Below. Fops May Have Leave To Level All They Can; As Pigmies Would Be Glad To Lop A Man. Half-wits Are Fleas; So Little And So Light, We Scarce Could Know They Live, But That They Bite.

Plots, True Or False, Are Necessary Things, To Raise Up Commonwealths And Ruin Kings.

The Glorious Lamp Of Heaven, The Radiant Sun, Is Nature's Eye.

Ev'n Wit's A Burthen, When It Talks Too Long.

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

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

Riches Cannot Rescue From The Grave, Which Claims Alike The Monarch And The Slave.

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

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

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

Tis Fate That Flings The Dice, And As She Flings Of Kings Makes Peasants, And Of Peasants Kings.

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!

Men Met Each Other With Erected Look, The Steps Were Higher That They Took; Friends To Congratulate Their Friends Made Haste, And Long Inveterate Foes Saluted As They Pass'd.

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

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

He Has Not Learned The First Lesson Of Life Who Does Not Every Day Surmount A Fear.

Shakespeare Was Naturally Learned; He Needed Not The Spectacles Of The Books To Read Nature; He Looked Inward, And Found Her There.

Better To Hunt In Fields, For Health Unbought, Than Fee The Doctor For A Nauseous Draught, The Wise, For Cure, On Exercise Depend; God Never Made His Work For Man To Mend.

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.

When Beauty Fires The Blood, How Love Exalts The Mind!

Restless At Home, And Ever Prone To Range.

A Brave Man Scorns To Quarrel Once A Day; Like Hectors In At Every Petty Fray.

That, If The Gentiles, (whom No Law Inspir'd,) By Nature Did What Was By Law Requir'd; They, Who The Written Rule And Never Known, Were To Themselves Both Rule And Law Alone: To Natures Plain Indictment They Shall Plead; And, By Their Conscience, Be Condemn'd Or Freed.

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

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

Words Are But Pictures Of Our Thoughts.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

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.

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

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

But When To Sin Our Biased Nature Leans, The Careful Devil Is Still At Hand With Means; And Providently Pimps For Ill Desires.

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

That Gloomy Outside, Like A Rusty Chest, Contains The Shoring Treasure Of A Soul Resolved And Brave.

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

These Are The Effects Of Doting Age,--vain Doubts And Idle Cares And Over Caution.

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

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

The Soft Complaining Flute, In Dying Notes, Discovers The Woes Of Hopeless Lovers.

By Education Most Have Been Misled; So They Believe, Because They Were Bred. The Priest Continues Where The Nurse Began, And Thus The Child Imposes On The Man.

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

To Tame The Proud, The Fetter'd Slave To Free, These Are Imperial Arts.

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

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.

Fortune's Unjust; She Ruins Oft The Brave, And Him Who Should Be Victor, Makes The Slave.

Time And Death Shall Depart And Say In Flying Love Has Found Out A Way To Live, By Dying.

Welcome, Thou Kind Deceiver! Thou Best Of Thieves; Who, With An Easy Key, Dost Open Life, And, Unperceived By Us, Even Steal Us From Ourselves.

He Trudged Along Unknowing What He Sought, And Whistled As He Went, For Want Of Thought.

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?

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

And That The Scriptures, Though Not Everywhere Free From Corruption, Or Entire, Or Clear, Are Uncorrupt, Sufficient, Clear, Entire In All Things Which Our Needful Faith Require.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

Virgil Is So Exact In Every Word, That None Can Be Changed But For A Worse; Nor Any One Removed From Its Place, But The Harmony Will Be Altered. He Pretends Sometimes To Trip; But It Is Only To Make You Think Him In Danger Of A Fall, When He Is Most Secure.

What Precious Drops Are Those, Which Silently Each Other's Track Pursue, Bright As Young Diamonds In Their Faint Dew?

Take Not Away The Life You Cannot Give: For All Things Have An Equal Right To Live.

To Die Is Landing On Some Distant Shore.

To Die For Faction Is A Common Evil, But To Be Hanged For Nonsense Is The Devil.

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

The Province Of The Soul Is Large Enough To Fill Up Every Cranny Of Your Time, And Leave You Much To Answer For If One Wretch Be Damned By Your Neglect.

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

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

Native Language

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

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

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

When We View Elevated Ideas Of Nature, The Result Of That View Is Admiration, Which Is Always The Cause Of Pleasure.

Sure There's Contagion In The Tears Of Friends.

As Poetry Is The Harmony Of Words, So Music Is That Of Notes.

Death Ends Our Woes, And The Kind Grave Shuts Up The Mournful Scene.

Pains Of Love Be Sweeter Far Than All Other Pleasures Are.

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

Pity Melts The Mind To Love.

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

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

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.

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

Love Works A Different Way In Different Minds, The Fool It Enlightens And The Wise It Blinds.

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.

Be Secret And Discreet; The Fairy Favors Are Lost When Not Concealed.

[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.

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

To So Perverse A Sex All Grace Is Vain.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

For Lawful Power Is Still Superior Found, When Long Driven Back, At Length It Stands The Ground.

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.

Let Fortune Empty Her Whole Quiver On Me, I Have A Soul That, Like An Ample Shield, Can Take In All, And Verge Enough For More; Fate Was Not Mine, Nor Am I Fate's: Souls Know No Conquerors.

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.

For Danger Levels Man And Brute And All Are Fellows In Their Need.

Beware Of The Fury Of The Patient Man.

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.

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.

Since Every Man Who Lives Is Born To Die, And None Can Boast Sincere Felicity, With Equal Mind, What Happens, Let Us Bear, Nor Joy Nor Grieve Too Much For Things Beyond Our Care. Like Pilgrims To The' Appointed Place We Tend; The World's An Inn, And Death The Journey's End.

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

There Is A Pleasure In Being Mad, Which None But Madmen Know.

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.

Beware The Fury Of A Patient Man.

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.

When I Consider Life, It Is All A Cheat. Yet Fooled With Hope, People Favor This Deceit.

And That One Hunting, Which The Devil Design'd For One Fair Female, Lost Him Half The Kind.

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

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.

By Viewing Nature, Nature's Handmaid Art, Makes Mighty Things From Small Beginnings Grow: Thus Fishes First To Shipping Did Impart, Their Tail The Rudder, And Their Head The Prow.

A Man Is To Be Cheated Into Passion, But To Be Reasoned Into Truth.

When I Consider Life, 't Is All A Cheat. Yet Fool'd With Hope, Men Favour The Deceit; 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. Strange Cozenage! 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.

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.

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

All The Learn'd Are Cowards By Profession.

To Breed Up The Son To Common Sense Is Evermore The Parent's Least Expense.

Nor Is The People's Judgment Always True: The Most May Err As Grossly As The Few.

Democracies Have

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

A Fiery Soul, Which Working Out Its Way, Fretted The Pygmy-body To Decay: And O'er-informed The Tenement Of Clay. A Daring Pilot In Extremity; Pleased With The Danger, When The Waves Went High He Sought The Storms...

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

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

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

Mysterious Things

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

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

Only Man Clogs His Happiness With Care, Destroying What Is With Thoughts Of What May Be.

Anxious Thoughts

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

Genius Must Be Born, And Never Can Be Taught.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

The People Have A Right Supreme To Make Their Kings, For Kings Are Made For Them. All Empire Is No More Than Pow'r In Trust, Which When Resum'd, Can Be No Longer Just. Successionm For The General Good Design'd, In Its Own Wrong A Nation Cannot Bind.

Desire Of Power, On Earth A Vicious Weed, Yet, Sprung From High, Is Of Celestial Seed: In God 'tisglory; And When Men Aspire, 'tis But A Spark Too Much Of Heavenly Fire.

Accurst Ambition, How Dearly I Have Bought You.

Love Taught Him Shame, And Shame With Love At Strife Soon Taught The Sweet Civilities Of Life.

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.

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

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

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

Dreams Are But Interludes, Which Fancy Makes; When Monarch Reason Sleeps, This Mimic Wakes.

Self-defense Is Nature's Eldest Law.

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

If One Must Be Rejected, One Succeed, Make Him My Lord Within Whose Faithful Breast Is Fixed My Image, And Who Loves Me Best.

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

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

Bacchus Ever Fair And Young, Drinking Joys Did First Ordain. Bachus's Blessings Are A Treasure, Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure, Rich The Treasure, Sweet The Pleasure- Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

Bold Knaves Thrive Without One Grain Of Sense, But Good Men Starve For Want Of Impudence.

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

Trust Reposed In Noble Natures Obliges Them The More.

Secret Guilt By Silence Is Betrayed.

When The Sun Sets, Shadows, That Shew'd At Noon But Small, Appear Most Long And Terrible; So, When We Think Fate Hovers O'er Our Heads, Our Apprehensions Shoot Beyond All Bounds, Owls, Ravens, Crickets Seem The Watch Of Death, Nature's Worst Vermine Scare Her God-like Sons. Ecchoes The Very Leavings Of A Voice, Grow Babling Ghosts, And Call Us To Our Graves: Each Mole-hill Thought Swells To A Huge Olympus, While We Fantastick Dreamers Heave And Puff, And Sweat With An Imagination's Weight.

Arts And Sciences In One And The Same Century Have Arrived At Great Perfection; And No Wonder, Since Every Age Has A Kind Of Universal Genius, Which Inclines Those That Live In It To Some Particular Studies; The Work Then, Being Pushed On By Many Hands, Must Go Forward.

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.

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

Genius Must Be Born, It Can't Be Taught.

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

Let Grace And Goodness Be The Principal Loadstone Of Thy Affections.

Her Wit Was More Than Man, Her Innocence A Child.

The Love Of Liberty With Life Is Given, And Life Itself The Inferior Gift Of Heaven.

Fiction Is Of The Essence Of Poetry As Well As Of Painting; There Is A Resemblance In One Of Human Bodies, Things, And Actions Which Are Not Real, And In The Other Of A True Story By Fiction.

Better One Suffer Than A Nation Grieve.

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

Thus, While The Mute Creation Downward Bend Their Sight, And To Their Earthly Mother Ten, Man Looks Aloft; And With Erected Eyes Beholds His Own Hereditary Skies.

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.

I Am Resolved To Grow Fat, And Look Young Till Forty.

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

Forgotten Things

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

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?

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

Jealousy Is The Jaundice Of The Soul.

Learn To Write Well, Or Not To Write At All.

Nothing To Build, And All Things To Destroy.

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

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.

Repentance Is The Virtue Of Weak Minds.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

An Horrible Stillness First Invades Our Ear, And In That Silence We The Tempest Fear.

Good Sense And Good Nature Are Never Separated; And Good Nature Is The Product Of Right Reason.

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

He Who Would Pry Behind The Scenes Oft Sees A Counterfeit.

Behind The Scenes

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!

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

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

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

Happy, Happy, Happy Pair! None But The Brave Deserves The Fair.

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