Background Image

...

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.

-John Dryden

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

That, If The Gentiles,

John Dryden

...

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.

Views: 11

Topic

More From John Dryden

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

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

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.

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

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

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

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...

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

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

Be Secret And Discreet; The Fairy Favors Are Lost When Not Concealed.

Seek Not To Know What Must Not Be Reveal, For Joy Only Flows Where Fate Is Most Concealed. A Busy Person Would Find Their Sorrows Much More; If Future Fortunes Were Known Before!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

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

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

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

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

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

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

The True Amphitryon Is The Amphitryon Where We Dine.

Ev'n Wit's A Burthen, When It Talks Too Long.

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

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

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

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.

Nothing To Build, And All Things To Destroy.

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

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.

To Draw True Beauty Shows A Master's Hand.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Love Is Love's Reward.

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

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

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

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

Imitators Are But A Servile Kind Of Cattle.

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.

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

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

So Softly Death Succeeded Life In Her, She Did But Dream Of Heaven, And She Was There.

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.

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

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

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

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.

All Delays Are Dangerous In War.

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.

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

My Love's A Noble Madness.

Self-defense Is Nature's Eldest Law.

Home Is The Sacred Refuge Of Our Life.

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

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Be Slow To Resolve, But Quick In Performance.

Possess Your Soul With Patience.

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

Restless At Home, And Ever Prone To Range.

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.

Freedom Which In No Other Land Will Thrive, Freedom An English Subject's Sole Prerogative.

Merit Challenges Envy.

But Love's A Malady Without A Cure.

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!

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.

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

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.

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

Thou Strong Seducer, Opportunity!

When Misfortune Is Asleep, Let No One Wake Her.

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

Anxious Thoughts

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

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

Revealed Religion First Informed Thy Sight, And Reason Saw Not Till Faith Sprung To Light.

Order Is The Greatest Grace.

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

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?

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

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.

Our Souls Sit Close And Silently Within, And Their Own Web From Their Own Entrails Spin; And When Eyes Meet Far Off, Our Sense Is Such, That, Spider-like, We Feel The Tenderest Touch.

Dancing Is The Poetry Of The Foot.

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

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

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.

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

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

Whatever Is, Is In Its Causes Just.

Go Miser Go, For Money Sell Your Soul. Trade Wares For Wares And Trudge From Pole To Pole, So Others May Say When You Are Dead And Gone. See What A Vast Estate He Left His Son.

Either Be Wholly Slaves Or Wholly Free.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

By Education Most Have Been Misled; So They Believe, Because They Were Bred. The Priest Continues Where The Nurse Began, And Thus The Child Imposes On The Man.

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

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

Bankrupt Of Life, Yet Prodigal Of Ease.

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

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.

Better One Suffer Than A Nation Grieve.

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

Boldness Is A Mask For Fear, However Great.

Boldness And Courage

If Passion Rules, How Weak Does Reason Prove!

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.

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.

Not Heav'n Itself Upon The Past Has Pow'r; But What Has Been, Has Been, And I Have Had My Hour.

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

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.

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.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

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

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

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

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

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

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

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

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

Reason Saw Not, Till Faith Sprung The Light.

Dead Men Tell No Tales.

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

Old Age Creeps On Us Ere We Think It Nigh.

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

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

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.

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.

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

She Feared No Danger, For She Knew No Sin.

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.

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

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

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

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.

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

Confidence Is The Feeling We Have Before Knowing All The Facts

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.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

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

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.

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

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

New Vows To Plight, And Plighted Vows To Break.

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.

Mighty Things From Small Beginnings Grow.

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

The Trumpet's Loud Clangor Excites Us To Arms.

Let Cheerfulness On Happy Fortune Wait.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

Whistling To Keep Myself From Being Afraid.

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

The Greater Part Performed Achieves The Less.

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

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.

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

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.

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

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

Is It Not Evident, In These Last Hundred Years (when The Study Of Philosophy Has Been The Business Of All The Virtuosi In Christendome) That Almost A New Nature Has Been Revealed To Us? That More Errours Of The School Have Been Detected, More Useful Experiments In Philosophy Have Been Made, More Noble Secrets In Opticks, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, Discover'd, Than In All Those Credulous And Doting Ages From Aristotle To Us? So True It Is That Nothing Spreads More Fast Than Science, When Rightly And Generally Cultivated.

My Hands Are Guilty, But My Heart Is Free.

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

Love And Friendship

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

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

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

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

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.

He Who Would Pry Behind The Scenes Oft Sees A Counterfeit.

Behind The Scenes

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

Long Distance Relationship

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

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.

Trending Author

Arianna Huffington

Carol Moseley Braun

Christina Milian

Kimberly Caldwell

Salvatore Quasimodo

Category