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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.

-John Dryden

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Men Met Each Other

John Dryden

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

Merit Challenges Envy.

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.

The Poorest Of The Sex Have Still An Itch To Know Their Fortunes, Equal To The Rich. The Dairy-maid Inquires, If She Shall Take The Trusty Tailor, And The Cook Forsake.

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

Native Language

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

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

Trust Reposed In Noble Natures Obliges Them The More.

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

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

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

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

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

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

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

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

The Good We Have Enjoyed From Heaven's Free Will, And Shall We Murmur To Endure The Ill?

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

Ill Writers Are Usually The Sharpest Censors.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

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.

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

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.

[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.

The Blushing Beauties Of A Modest Maid.

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

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.

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Bankrupt Of Life, Yet Prodigal Of Ease.

Take The Good The Gods Provide Thee.

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

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

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

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

Order Is The Greatest Grace.

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

…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

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

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

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

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.

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

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

Forgotten Things

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

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

It's A Hard World, Neighbors, If A Man's Oath Must Be His Master.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

I Learn To Pity Woes So Like My Own.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

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.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

Accurst Ambition, How Dearly I Have Bought You.

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

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.

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.

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

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

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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

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

Long Distance Relationship

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

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

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

Prodigious Actions May As Well Be Done, By Weaver's Issue, As The Prince's Son.

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.

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

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.

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

The Propriety Of Thoughts And Words, Which Are The Hidden Beauties Of A Play, Are But Confusedly Judged In The Vehemence Of Action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

To So Perverse A Sex All Grace Is Vain.

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

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

The Elephant Is Never Won By Anger; Nor Must That Man Who Would Reclaim A Lion Take Him By The Teeth.

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

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

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.

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

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

Mysterious Things

Love Is Love's Reward.

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

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

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.

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.

God Never Made His Work For Man To Mend.

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

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

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

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

But Dying Is A Pleasure / When Living Is A Pain.

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.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

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

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

Presence Of Mind

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

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

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

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

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.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

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

Politicians Neither Love Nor Hate.

Restless At Home, And Ever Prone To Range.

Boldness Is A Mask For Fear, However Great.

Boldness And Courage

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

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.

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

The Scum That Rises Upmost, When The Nation Boils.

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.

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

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

A Lazy Frost, A Numbness Of The Mind.

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

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

They First Condemn That First Advised The Ill.

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 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.

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

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

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

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

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

There's A Proud Modesty In Merit; Averse From Asking, And Resolved To Pay Ten Times The Gifts It Asks.

One Of The Greatest, Most Noble, And Most Sublime Poems Which Either This Age Or Nation Has Produced.

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

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

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

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

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

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

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.

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

Fortune, That With Malicious Joydoes Man Her Slave Oppress,proud Of Her Office To Destroy,is Seldom Pleasd To Bless.

Love Either Finds Equality Or Makes It.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Sure There's Contagion In The Tears Of Friends.

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.

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.

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

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

For All Have Not The Gift Of Martyrdom.

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.

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.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

Damn'd Neuters, In Their Middle Way Of Steering, Are Neither Fish, Nor Flesh, Nor Good Red Herring.

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.

If Passion Rules, How Weak Does Reason Prove!

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

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

Not To Ask Is Not Be Denied.

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.

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.

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