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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.

-John Dryden

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Some Of Our Philosophizing

John Dryden

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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.

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

Music Is Inarticulate Poesy.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

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

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

Ill Writers Are Usually The Sharpest Censors.

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.

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.

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

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 Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

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

Anxious Thoughts

Criticism, As It Was First Instituted By Aristotle, Was Meant As A Standard Of Judging Well; The Chiefest Part Of Which Is To Observe Those Excellencies Which Delight A Reasonable Reader.

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

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.

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

I Feel My Sinews Slackened With The Fright, And A Cold Sweat Trills Down All Over My Limbs, As If I Were Dissolving Into Water.

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

For All Have Not The Gift Of Martyrdom.

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.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

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

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

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

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.

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

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

Light Sufferings Give Us Leisure To Complain.

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

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

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

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.

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

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.

Here Lies My Wife: Here Let Her Lie! Now She's At Rest, And So Am I.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

Drinking Is The Soldier's Pleasure.

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

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

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.

Genius Must Be Born, And Never Can Be Taught.

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

The Scum That Rises Upmost, When The Nation Boils.

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

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

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

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

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

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.

All The Learn'd Are Cowards By Profession.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

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.

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

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

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.

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.

Beware Of The Fury Of The Patient Man.

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

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

A Lazy Frost, A Numbness Of The Mind.

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.

Beauty, Like Ice, Our Footing Does Betray; Who Can Tread Sure On The Smooth, Slippery Way: Pleased With The Surface, We Glide Swiftly On, And See The Dangers That We Cannot Shun.

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

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.

For Every Inch That Is Not Fool, Is Rogue.

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.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

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

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

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

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

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

For Thee, Sweet Month; The Groves Green Liveries Wear. If Not The First, The Fairest Of The Year; For Thee The Graces Lead The Dancing Hours, And Nature's Ready Pencil Paints The Flowers. When Thy Short Reign Is Past, The Feverish Sun The Sultry Tropic Fears, And Moves More Slowly On.

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.

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

When Misfortune Is Asleep, Let No One Wake Her.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Merit Challenges Envy.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

To So Perverse A Sex All Grace Is Vain.

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

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

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

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

Native Language

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Presence Of Mind

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Politicians Neither Love Nor Hate.

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

Secret Guilt Is By Silence Revealed.

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

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.

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

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

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

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

War Seldom Enters But Where Wealth Allures.

Let Cheerfulness On Happy Fortune Wait.

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

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

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

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

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

Long Distance Relationship

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

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

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

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

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.

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

Mysterious Things

Love Is Love's Reward.

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.

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

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

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

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

All Objects Lose By Too Familiar A View.

Second Thoughts, They Say, Are Best.

Second Thoughts

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.

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

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

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

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.

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

Like Pilgrims To Th' Appointed Place We Tend; The World's An Inn, And Death The Journey's End.

Secret Guilt By Silence Is Betrayed.

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

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

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.

He Who Trusts Secrets To A Servant Makes Him His Master

Keeping Secrets

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

We Find Few Historians Who Have Been Diligent Enough In Their Search For Truth; It Is Their Common Method To Take On Trust What They Help Distribute To The Public; By Which Means A Falsehood Once Received From A Famed Writer Becomes Traditional To Posterity.

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

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

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.

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

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

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Pity Melts The Mind To Love.

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

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

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

I Have A Soul That Like An Ample Shield Can Take In All, And Verge Enough For More.

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...

Never Was Patriot Yet, But Was A Fool.

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

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.

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

All, As They Say, That Glitters Is Not Gold.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

[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 Trumpet's Loud Clangor Excites Us To Arms.

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

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

Repartee Is The Soul Of Conversation.

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

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

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

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.

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

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

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

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