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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.

-John Dryden

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I'm A Little Wounded,

John Dryden

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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.

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

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

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

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

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

How Blessed Is He, Who Leads A Country Life, Unvex'd With Anxious Cares, And Void Of Strife! Who Studying Peace, And Shunning Civil Rage, Enjoy'd His Youth, And Now Enjoys His Age: All Who Deserve His Love, He Makes His Own; And, To Be Lov'd Himself, Needs Only To Be Known.

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

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

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

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

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

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

Light Sufferings Give Us Leisure To Complain.

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.

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

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

If All The World Be Worth Thy Winning. / Think, Oh Think It Worth Enjoying: / Lovely Thaïs Sits Beside Thee, / Take The Good The Gods Provide Thee.

Roused By The Lash Of His Own Stubborn Tail Our Lion Now Will Foreign Foes Assail.

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

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

If By The People You Understand The Multitude, The Hoi Polloi, 'tis No Matter What They Think; They Are Sometimes In The Right, Sometimes In The Wrong; Their Judgment Is A Mere Lottery.

To Die Is Landing On Some Distant Shore.

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

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

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

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

War Seldom Enters But Where Wealth Allures.

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

There Is A Proud Modesty In Merit.

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

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.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

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.

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

Mankind Is Ever The Same, And Nothing Lost Out Of Nature, Though Everything Is Altered.

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

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

Democracies Have

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

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.

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

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.

So The False Spider, When Her Nets Are Spread, Deep Ambushed In Her Silent Den Does Lie.

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

If Passion Rules, How Weak Does Reason Prove!

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.

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

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

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

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

He Who Trusts A Secret To His Servant Makes His Own Man His Master.

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.

He Who Trusts Secrets To A Servant Makes Him His Master

Keeping Secrets

Those Who Write Ill, And They Who Ne'er Durst Write, Turn Critics Out Of Mere Revenge And Spite.

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

Forgotten Things

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

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

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

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

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

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

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

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

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

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

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

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.

He Look'd In Years, Yet In His Years Were Seen A Youthful Vigor, And Autumnal Green.

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

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

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

Mysterious Things

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

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.

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

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

Murder May Pass Unpunishd For A Time, But Tardy Justice Will Oertake The Crime.

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.

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

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.

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.

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

[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.

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

Anxious Thoughts

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

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

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.

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

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

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

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

A Farce Is That In Poetry Which Grotesque (caricature) Is In Painting. The Persons And Actions Of A Farce Are All Unnatural, And The Manners False, That Is, Inconsistent With The Characters Of Mankind; And Grotesque Painting Is The Just Resemblance Of This.

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

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

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

Love And Friendship

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.

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

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

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

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

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.

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.

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

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

Not To Ask Is Not Be Denied.

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.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

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

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

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

Repentance Is The Virtue Of Weak Minds.

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

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

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

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

Music Is Inarticulate Poesy.

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

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

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

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

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.

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.

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

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

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

Native Language

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!

My Right Eye Itches, Some Good Luck Is Near.

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.

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

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

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

Imagining Is In Itself The Very Height And Life Of Poetry, Which, By A Kind Of Enthusiasm Or Extraordinary Emotion Of The Soul, Makes It Seem To Us That We Behold Those Things Which The Poet Paints.

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

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

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

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.

Griefs Assured Are Felt Before They Come.

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.

Shakespeare Was The Homer, Or Father Of Our Dramatic Poets;jonson Was Thevirgil, The Pattern Of Elaborate Writing; I Admire Him, But I Love Shakespeare.

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

They, Who Would Combat General Authority With Particular Opinion, Must First Establish Themselves A Reputation Of Understanding Better Than Other Men.

The True Amphitryon Is The Amphitryon Where We Dine.

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.

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

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.

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

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

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

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.

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

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.

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Beware The Fury Of A Patient Man.

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

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

The Trumpet's Loud Clangor Excites Us To Arms.

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

Presence Of Mind And Courage In Distress, Are More Than Arrives To Procure Success?

Presence Of Mind

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

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

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.

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

All The Learn'd Are Cowards By Profession.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

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

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

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

Doeg, Though Without Knowing How Or Why, Made Still A Blundering Kind Of Melody; Spurr'd Boldly On, And Dash'd Through Thick And Thin, Through Sense And Nonsense, Never Out Nor In; Free From All Meaning Whether Good Or Bad, And In One Word, Heroically Mad.

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

Heroic Poetry Has Ever Been Esteemed The Greatest Work Of Human Nature.

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

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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

The Wretched Have No Friends.

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

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.

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