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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?

-John Dryden

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If The Faults Of

John Dryden

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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?

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

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.

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

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

War Seldom Enters But Where Wealth Allures.

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

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

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.

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.

The Commendation Of Adversaries Is The Greatest Triumph Of A Writer, Because It Never Comes Unless Extorted.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

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

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.

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

Mighty Things From Small Beginnings Grow.

Restless At Home, And Ever Prone To Range.

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

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.

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

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

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.

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

Presence Of Mind

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.

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

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

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?

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

For All Have Not The Gift Of Martyrdom.

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

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

Native Language

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

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

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

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

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.

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

Imitation Pleases, Because It Affords Matter For Inquiring Into The Truth Or Falsehood Of Imitation, By Comparing Its Likeness Or Unlikeness With The Original.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

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.

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

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

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.

Trust Reposed In Noble Natures Obliges Them The More.

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

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.

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

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

Sure There's Contagion In The Tears Of Friends.

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.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

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

When Misfortune Is Asleep, Let No One Wake Her.

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

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

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

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.

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

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

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

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.

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

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

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.

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

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

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

Bankrupt Of Life, Yet Prodigal Of Ease.

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

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

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

All Delays Are Dangerous In War.

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

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.

He Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

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.

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

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

Ever A Glutton, At Another's Cost, But In Whose Kitchen Dwells Perpetual Frost.

He Who Trusts Secrets To A Servant Makes Him His Master

Keeping Secrets

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

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.

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

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

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

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

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.

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

Order Is The Greatest Grace.

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

Criticism Is Now Become Mere Hangman's Work, And Meddles Only With The Faults Of Authors ; Nay, The Critic Is Disgusted Less With Their Absurdities Than Excellence ; And You Cannot Displease Him More Than In Leaving Him Little Room For His Malice.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

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

Mysterious Things

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

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

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

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

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

For Every Inch That Is Not Fool, Is Rogue.

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

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.

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

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

Grace And Mercy

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.

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

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.

Music Is Inarticulate Poesy.

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

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.

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

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

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

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

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.

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

Nothing To Build, And All Things To Destroy.

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.

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

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

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

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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

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

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.

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.

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Whatever Is, Is In Its Causes Just.

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

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.

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.

Politicians Neither Love Nor Hate.

Love Is Love's Reward.

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

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

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

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

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

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.

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

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

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

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.

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.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

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

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

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

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