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

-John Dryden

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The Propriety Of Thoughts

John Dryden

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

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

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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

Repartee Is The Soul Of Conversation.

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.

And Love's The Noblest Frailty Of The Mind.

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

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

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

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

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.

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.

Confidence Is The Feeling We Have Before Knowing All The Facts

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

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

Interest Makes All Seem Reason That Leads To It.

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.

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

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

The Secret Pleasure Of A Generous Act Is The Great Mind's Great Bribe.

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

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.

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

Whatever Is, Is In Its Causes Just.

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

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

Old Age Creeps On Us Ere We Think It Nigh.

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

The True Amphitryon Is The Amphitryon Where We Dine.

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

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

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

Keen Appetite And Quick Digestion Wait On You And Yours.

O Freedom, First Delight Of Human Kind!

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

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

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

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.

For Every Inch That Is Not Fool, Is Rogue.

The Blushing Beauties Of A Modest Maid.

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.

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.

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.

He Is A Perpetual Fountain Of Good Sense.

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

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

Zeal, The Blind Conductor Of The Will.

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

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

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.

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

Successful Crimes Alone Are Justified.

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

All Delays Are Dangerous In War.

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

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?

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

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

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.

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.

War Is A Trade Of Kings.

The Conscience Of A People Is Their Power.

To Draw True Beauty Shows A Master's Hand.

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

God Never Made His Work For Man To Mend.

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

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.

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

Youth Should Watch Joys And Shoot Them As They Fly.

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

Trust Reposed In Noble Natures Obliges Them The More.

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

The Bravest Men Are Subject Most To Chance.

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.

Politicians Neither Love Nor Hate.

Silence In Times Of Suffering Is The Best.

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

Grace And Mercy

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Ye Moon And Stars, Bear Witness To The Truth.

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.

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

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

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

Long Distance Relationship

How Happy The Lover, How Easy His Chain, How Pleasing His Pain, How Sweet To Discover He Sighs Not In Vain.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Wretched Have No Friends.

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

Order Is The Greatest Grace.

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

Humility And Resignation Are Our Prime Virtues.

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

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

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

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

A Happy Genius Is The Gift Of Nature.

Let Cheerfulness On Happy Fortune Wait.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

Behind The Scenes

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

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

Fattened In Vice, So Callous And So Gross, He Sins And Sees Not, Senseless Of His Loss.

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

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

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.

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

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

None, None Descends Into Himself, To Find The Secret Imperfections Of His Mind: But Every One Is Eagle-ey'd To See Another's Faults, And His Deformity.

We By Art Unteach What Nature Taught.

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.

Beware Of The Fury Of The Patient Man.

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

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.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

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.

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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

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.

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

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

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

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

Love Is Not In Our Choice But In Our Fate.

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

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

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

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

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

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

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

Mighty Things From Small Beginnings Grow.

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

Even Victors Are By Victories Undone.

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.

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

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

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.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

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

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

Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

New Vows To Plight, And Plighted Vows To Break.

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

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

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.

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.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

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.

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.

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

The Scum That Rises Upmost, When The Nation Boils.

Courage From Hearts And Not From Numbers Grows.

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

To So Perverse A Sex All Grace Is Vain.

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

Jealousy Is The Jaundice Of The Soul.

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.

Beware The Fury Of A Patient Man.

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

Treason Is Greatest Where Trust Is Greatest.

Genius Must Be Born, And Never Can Be Taught.

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