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

-John Dryden

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Every Language Is So

John Dryden

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

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…so When The Last And Dreadful Hour This Crumbling Pageant Shall Devour, The Trumpet Shall Be Heard On High, The Dead Shall Live, The Living Die, And Music Shall Untune The Sky

Bankrupt Of Life, Yet Prodigal Of Ease.

Old Age Creeps On Us Ere We Think It Nigh.

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.

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

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

Democracies Have

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

The People's Prayer, The Glad Diviner's Theme, The Young Men's Vision, And The Old Men's Dream!

A Coward Is The Kindest Animal; 'tis The Most Forgiving Creature In A Fight.

He Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

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

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

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

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

For Your Ignorance Is The Mother Of Your Devotion To Me.

Not Sharp Revenge, Nor Hell Itself Can Find, A Fiercer Torment Than A Guilty Mind, Which Day And Night Doth Dreadfully Accuse, Condemns The Wretch, And Still The Charge Renews.

With Odorous Oil Thy Head And Hair Are Sleek; And Then Thou Kemb'st The Tuzzes On Thy Cheek: Of These, My Barbers Take A Costly Care.

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

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

A Narrow Mind Begets Obstinacy; We Do Not Easily Believe What We Cannot See.

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

Virgil, Above All Poets, Had A Stock Which I May Call Almost Inexhaustible, Of Figurative, Elegant, And Sounding Words.

It Is A Madness To Make Fortune The Mistress Of Events, Because In Herself She Is Nothing, Can Rule Nothing, But Is Ruled By Prudence.

How Happy The Lover, How Easy His Chain, How Pleasing His Pain, How Sweet To Discover He Sighs Not In Vain.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Words Are But Pictures Of Our Thoughts.

Merit Challenges Envy.

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

Love And Time With Reverence Use, Treat Them Like A Parting Friend: Nor The Golden Gifts Refuse Which In Youth Sincere They Send: For Each Year Their Price Is More, And They Less Simple Than Before.

Never Was Patriot Yet, But Was A Fool.

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

Every Age Has A Kind Of Universal Genius, Which Inclines Those That Live In It To Some Particular Studies.

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

Jealousy's A Proof Of Love, But 'tis A Weak And Unavailing Medicine; It Puts Out The Disease And Makes It Show, But Has No Power To Cure.

New Vows To Plight, And Plighted Vows To Break.

Ill Habits Gather Unseen Degrees, As Brooks Make Rivers, Rivers Run To Seas.

Nature Meant Me A Wife, A Silly, Harmless, Household Dove, Fond Without Art, And Kind Without Deceit.

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

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

I Am As Free As Nature First Made Man, Ere The Base Laws Of Servitude Began, When Wild In Woods The Noble Savage Ran.

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

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

Reason Is A Crutch For Age, But Youth Is Strong Enough To Walk Alone.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

Fortune Confounds The Wise, And When They Least Expect It Turns The Dice.

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.

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

Virtue Without Success Is A Fair Picture Shown By An Ill Light; But Lucky Men Are Favorites Of Heaven; All Own The Chief, When Fortune Owns The Cause.

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

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

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

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

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.

In Pious Times, Ere Priest-craft Did Begin, Before Polygamy Was Made A Sin; When Man, On Many, Multipli'd His Kind, Ere One To One Was Cursedly Confin'd: When Nature Prompted, And No Law Deni'd Promiscuous Use Of Concubine And Bride; Then, Israel's Monarch, After Heaven's Own Heart, His Vigorous Warmth Did Variously Impart To Wives And Slaves: And, Wide As His Command, Scatter'd His Maker's Image Through The Land.

The Thought Of Being Nothing After Death Is A Burden Insupportable To A Virtuous Man.

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.

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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.

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

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.

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

For Secrets Are Edged Tools, And Must Be Kept From Children And From Fools.

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

Treason Is Greatest Where Trust Is Greatest.

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

The Unhappy Man, Who Once Has Trail'd A Pen, Lives Not To Please Himself, But Other Men; Is Always Drudging, Wastes His Life And Blood, Yet Only Eats And Drinks What You Think Good.

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

And He, Who Servilely Creeps After Sense, Is Safe, But Ne'er Will Reach An Excellence.

The World To Bacon Does Not Only Owe It's Present Knowledge, But Its Future Too.

For Those Whom God To Ruin Has Design'd, He Fits For Fate, And First Destroys Their Mind.

He Who Proposes To Be An Author Should First Be A Student.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Shame On The Body For Breaking Down While The Spirit Perseveres.

Great Souls Forgive Not Injuries Till Time Has Put Their Enemies Within Their Power, That They May Show Forgiveness Is Their Own.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

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.

Better One Suffer Than A Nation Grieve.

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

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.

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

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

Since A True Knowledge Of Nature Gives Us Pleasure, A Lively Imitation Of It, Either In Poetry Or Painting, Must Produce A Much Greater; For Both These Arts Are Not Only True Imitations Of Nature, But Of The Best Nature.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

For My Part, I Can Compare Her (a Gossip) To Nothing But The Sun; For, Like Him, She Knows No Rest, Nor Ever Sets In One Place But To Rise In Another.

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

What Judgment I Had Increases Rather Than Diminishes; And Thoughts, Such As They Are, Come Crowding In So Fast Upon Me, That My Only Difficulty Is To Choose Or Reject; To Run Them Into Verse Or To Give Them The Other Harmony Of Prose.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

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.

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

My Right Eye Itches, Some Good Luck Is Near.

What I Have Left Is From My Native Spring; I've Still A Heart That Swells, In Scorn Of Fate, And Lifts Me To My Banks.

Jealousy Is The Jaundice Of The Soul.

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

When Bounteous Autumn Rears Her Head, He Joys To Pull The Ripened Pear.

We Must Beat The Iron While It Is Hot, But We May Polish It At Leisure.

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

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.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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

A Lazy Frost, A Numbness Of The Mind.

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

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.

Some Of Our Philosophizing Divines Have Too Much Exalted The Faculties Of Our Souls, When They Have Maintained That By Their Force Mankind Has Been Able To Find Out God.

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

Maintain Your Post: That's All The Fame You Need; For 'tis Impossible You Should Proceed.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

Pity Only On Fresh Objects Stays, But With The Tedious Sight Of Woes Decays.

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

The Fool Of Nature Stood With Stupid Eyes And Gaping Mouth, That Testified Surprise.

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

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

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

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.

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.

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

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

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

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.

Go Miser Go, For Money Sell Your Soul. Trade Wares For Wares And Trudge From Pole To Pole, So Others May Say When You Are Dead And Gone. See What A Vast Estate He Left His Son.

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

When Misfortune Is Asleep, Let No One Wake Her.

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

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!

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

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

Mere Poets Are Sottish As Mere Drunkards Are, Who Live In A Continual Mist, Without Seeing Or Judging Anything Clearly. A Man Should Be Learned In Several Sciences, And Should Have A Reasonable, Philosophical And In Some Measure A Mathematical Head, To Be A Complete And Excellent Poet.

An Hour Will Come, With Pleasure To Relate Your Sorrows Past, As Benefits Of Fate.

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

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

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.

Self-defense Is Nature's Eldest Law.

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

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

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

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

Not To Ask Is Not Be Denied.

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

Then We Upon Our Globe's Last Verge Shall Go, And View The Ocean Leaning On The Sky: From Thence Our Rolling Neighbours We Shall Know, And On The Lunar World Securely Pry.

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!

Present Joys Are More To Flesh And Blood Than A Dull Prospect Of A Distant Good.

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

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

Whistling To Keep Myself From Being Afraid.

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.

Ah, How Sweet It Is To Love! Ah, How Gay Is Young Desire! And What Pleasing Pains We Prove When We First Approach Love's Fire!

Silence In Times Of Suffering Is The Best.

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.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

Ill Writers Are Usually The Sharpest Censors.

Confidence Is The Feeling We Have Before Knowing All The Facts

All Things Are Subject To Decay And When Fate Summons, Monarchs Must Obey.

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.

Love Reckons Hours For Months, And Days For Years; And Every Little Absence Is An Age.

Long Distance Relationship

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

Forgotten Things

[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.

I Am Reading Jonson's Verses To The Memory Of Shakespeare; An Insolent, Sparing, And Invidious Panegyric.

A Knock-down Argument; 'tis But A Word And A Blow.

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.

Satire Among The Romans, But Not Among The Greeks, Was A Bitter Invective Poem.

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

Behind The Scenes

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

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.

Raw In The Fields The Rude Militia Swarms, Mouth Without Hands; Maintained At Vast Expense, In Peace A Charge, In War A Weak Defence.

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

If We From Wealth To Poverty Descend, Want Gives To Know The Flatterer From The Friend.

Long Pains, With Use Of Bearing, Are Half Eased.

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.

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?

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

Softly Sweet, In Lydian Measures, Soon He Sooth'd His Soul To Pleasures. War, He Sung, Is Toil And Trouble; Honour But An Empty Bubble; Never Ending, Still Beginning, Fighting Still, And Still Destroying. If All The World Be Worth The Winning, Think, Oh Think It Worth Enjoying: Lovely Thais Sits Beside Thee, Take The Good The Gods Provide Thee.

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.

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

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

Three Poets, In Three Distant Ages Born, Greece, Italy, And England Did Adorn. The First In Loftiness Of Thought Surpass'd; The Next, In Majesty; In Both The Last. The Force Of Nature Could No Further Go; To Make A Third, She Join'd The Former Two.

Let Cheerfulness On Happy Fortune Wait.

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