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From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: When Nature Underneath A Heap Of Jarring Atoms Lay, And Could Not Heave Her Head, The Tuneful Voice Was Heard From High, 'arise, Ye More Than Dead!' Then Cold, And Hot, And Moist, And Dry, In Order To Their Stations Leap, And Music's Power Obey. From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.

-John Dryden

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From Harmony, From Heavenly

John Dryden

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From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: When Nature Underneath A Heap Of Jarring Atoms Lay, And Could Not Heave Her Head, The Tuneful Voice Was Heard From High, 'arise, Ye More Than Dead!' Then Cold, And Hot, And Moist, And Dry, In Order To Their Stations Leap, And Music's Power Obey. From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.

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Truth Is Never To Be Expected From Authors Whose Understanding Is Warped With Enthusiasm.

Repartee Is The Soul Of Conversation.

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.

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.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

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

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

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

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.

Whistling To Keep Myself From Being Afraid.

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

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

From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: When Nature Underneath A Heap Of Jarring Atoms Lay, And Could Not Heave Her Head, The Tuneful Voice Was Heard From High, 'arise, Ye More Than Dead!' Then Cold, And Hot, And Moist, And Dry, In Order To Their Stations Leap, And Music's Power Obey. From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.

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.

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

But 'tis The Talent Of Our English Nation, Still To Be Plotting Some New Reformation.

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

God Has Endowed Man With Inalienable Rights, Among Which Are Self-government, Reason, And Conscience. Man Is Properly Self-governed Only When He Is Guided Rightly And Governed By His Maker, Divine Truth And Love.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Rich The Treasure, Sweet The Pleasure,- Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

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.

He Who Trusts Secrets To A Servant Makes Him His Master

Keeping Secrets

Love Is Love's Reward.

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

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

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

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.

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

Of No Distemper, Of No Blast He Died, But Fell Like Autumn Fruit That Mellow'd Long: Even Wonder'd At, Because He Dropp'd No Sooner. Fate Seem'd To Wind Him Up For Fourscore Years; Yet Freshly Ran He On Ten Winters More; Till Like A Clock Worn Out With Eating Time, The Wheels Of Weary Life At Last Stood Still.

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

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

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

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

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

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.

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

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

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

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.

Revenge, Revenge, Timotheus Cries, See The Furies Arise!

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

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.

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

Happy The Man, And Happy He Alone, He, Who Can Call Today His Own.

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

There Is A Proud Modesty In Merit.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

A Satirical Poet Is The Check Of The Laymen On Bad Priests.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

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

Honor Is But An Empty Bubble.

The End Of Satire Is The Amendment Of Vices By Correction; And He Who Writes Honestly Is No More An Enemy To The Offender Than The Physician To The Patient When He Prescribes Harsh Remedies.

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.

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

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

I Strongly Wish For What I Faintly Hope; Like The Daydreams Of Melancholy Men, I Think And Think In Things Impossible, Yet Love To Wander In That Golden Maze.

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

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.

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

Old Age Creeps On Us Ere We Think It Nigh.

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

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.

Forgiveness To The Injured Does Belong; But They Ne'er Pardon Who Have Done Wrong.

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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

Better One Suffer Than A Nation Grieve.

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

My Whole Life Has Been A Golden Dream Of Love And Friendship.

Love And Friendship

Him Of The Western Dome, Whose Weighty Sense Flows In Fit Words And Heavenly Eloquence.

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

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

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

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Beware The Fury Of A Patient Man.

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

All Objects Lose By Too Familiar A View.

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.

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

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

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

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

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

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

It Is Sufficient To Say, According To The Proverb, That Here Is God's Plenty.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

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

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.

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

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

The Fortitude Of A Christian Consists In Patience, Not In Enterprises Which The Poets Call Heroic, And Which Are Commonly The Effects Of Interest, Pride And Worldly Honor.

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.

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.

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

The Perverseness Of My Fate Is Such That He's Not Mine Because He's Mine Too Much.

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

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

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.

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

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

The Trumpet's Loud Clangor Excites Us To Arms.

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

Content With Poverty, My Soul I Arm; And Virtue, Though In Rags, Will Keep Me Warm.

Railing In Other Men May Be A Crime, But Ought To Pass For Mere Instinct In Him: Instinct He Follows And No Further Knows, For To Write Verse With Him Is To Transprose.

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

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

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.

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.

The Fates But Only Spin The Coarser Clue; The Finest Of The Wool Is Left For You.

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

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

Bankrupt Of Life, Yet Prodigal Of Ease.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Merit Challenges Envy.

Music Is Inarticulate Poesy.

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.

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!

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.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

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...

Swift Was The Race, But Short The Time To Run.

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.

The Secret Pleasure Of A Generous Act Is The Great Mind's Great Bribe.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

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

Anxious Thoughts

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

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.

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

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

Parting Is Worse Than Death; It Is Death Of Love!

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

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

Secret Guilt By Silence Is Betrayed.

Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

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.

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

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

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.

For Truth Has Such A Face And Such A Mien, As To Be Loved Needs Only To Be Seen.

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

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

New Vows To Plight, And Plighted Vows To Break.

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

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

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Satire Is A Kind Of Poetry In Which Human Vices Are Reprehended.

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

He Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

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

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 Every Inch That Is Not Fool, Is Rogue.

Death In Itself Is Nothing; But We Fear To Be We Know Not What, We Know Not Where.

It Is Almost Impossible To Translate Verbally And Well At The Same Time; For The Latin (a Most Severe And Compendious Language) Often Expresses That In One Word Which Either The Barbarity Or The Narrowness Of Modern Tongues Cannot Supply In More. ...but Since Every Language Is So Full Of Its Own Proprieties That What Is Beautiful In One Is Often Barbarous, Nay, Sometimes Nonsense, In Another, It Would Be Unreasonable To Limit A Translator To The Narrow Compass Of His Author's Words; It Is Enough If He Choose Out Some Expression Which Does Not Vitiate The Sense.

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

None, None Descends Into Himself, To Find The Secret Imperfections Of His Mind: But Every One Is Eagle-ey'd To See Another's Faults, And His Deformity.

Reason To Rule, Mercy To Forgive: The First Is Law, The Last Prerogative. Life Is An Adventure In Forgiveness.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

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

If You Are For A Merry Jaunt, I Will Try, For Once, Who Can Foot It Farthest.

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

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