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Virgil Is So Exact In Every Word, That None Can Be Changed But For A Worse; Nor Any One Removed From Its Place, But The Harmony Will Be Altered. He Pretends Sometimes To Trip; But It Is Only To Make You Think Him In Danger Of A Fall, When He Is Most Secure.

-John Dryden

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Virgil Is So Exact

John Dryden

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Virgil Is So Exact In Every Word, That None Can Be Changed But For A Worse; Nor Any One Removed From Its Place, But The Harmony Will Be Altered. He Pretends Sometimes To Trip; But It Is Only To Make You Think Him In Danger Of A Fall, When He Is Most Secure.

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Old As I Am, For Ladies' Love Unfit, The Power Of Beauty I Remember Yet.

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

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

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.

There Is A Proud Modesty In Merit.

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

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

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

Presence Of Mind

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

For Art May Err, But Nature Cannot Miss.

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.

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.

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.

Not Judging Truth To Be In Nature Better Than Falsehood, But Setting A Value Upon Both According To Interest.

Blown Roses Hold Their Sweetness To The Last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

None But The Brave Deserve The Fair.

Words Are But Pictures Of Our Thoughts.

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

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

And Plenty Makes Us Poor.

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

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.

Kings Fight For Empires, Madmen For Applause.

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

Forgotten Things

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.

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

Desire Of Greatness Is A Godlike Sin.

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

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

Among Our Crimes Oblivion May Be Set.

Love Is A Passion Which Kindles Honor Into Noble Acts.

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

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

Repentance Is The Virtue Of Weak Minds.

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.

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

The First Is The Law, The Last Prerogative.

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.

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.

Sweet Is Pleasure After Pain.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Ill Fortune Seldom Comes Alone.

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.

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

With How Much Ease Believe We What We Wish!

Genius Must Be Born, And Never Can Be Taught.

He Who Would Search For Pearls Must Dive Below.

Repartee Is The Soul Of Conversation.

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

Virgil Is So Exact In Every Word, That None Can Be Changed But For A Worse; Nor Any One Removed From Its Place, But The Harmony Will Be Altered. He Pretends Sometimes To Trip; But It Is Only To Make You Think Him In Danger Of A Fall, When He Is Most Secure.

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

Ill Writers Are Usually The Sharpest Censors.

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

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

They Say Everything In The World Is Good For Something.

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

Or Hast Thou Known The World So Long In Vain?

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.

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

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

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

But How Can Finite Grasp Infinity?

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

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

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

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.

Never Was Patriot Yet, But Was A Fool.

A Thing Well Said Will Be Wit In All Languages.

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

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

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

Love And Friendship

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

All Delays Are Dangerous In War.

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.

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

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

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

The Jews, A Headstrong, Moody, Murmuring Race.

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.

Resolved To Ruin Or To Rule The State.

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.

They Think Too Little Who Talk Too Much.

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

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

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.

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.

What Passion Cannot Music Raise And Quell!

Rhyme Is The Rock On Which Thou Art To Wreck.

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

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

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.

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

War Is The Trade Of Kings.

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.

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.

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

Nothing To Build, And All Things To Destroy.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

To Die Is Landing On Some Distant Shore.

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.

Few Know The Use Of Life Before 'tis Past.

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.

Imitators Are But A Servile Kind Of Cattle.

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

Mysterious Things

As One That Neither Seeks, Nor Shuns His Foe.

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

[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.

Silence In Times Of Suffering Is The Best.

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

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!

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.

Men Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

All Habits Gather By Unseen Degrees.

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

Treason Is Greatest Where Trust Is Greatest.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I'm A Little Wounded, But I Am Not Slain; I Will Lay Me Down To Bleed A While. Then I'll Rise And Fight Again.

Pride - Lord Of Human Kind

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.

Pity Melts The Mind To Love.

Even Kings But Play; And When Their Part Is Done, Some Other, Worse Or Better, Mounts The Throne.

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.

For They Can Conquer Who Believe They Can.

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.

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!

All Heiresses Are Beautiful.

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

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

He Made All Countries Where He Came His Own.

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

All Authors To Their Own Defects Are Blind.

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.

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.

He Wants Worth Who Dares Not Praise A Foe.

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

They Live Too Long Who Happiness Outlive.

I Never Saw Any Good That Came Of Telling Truth.

Telling The Truth

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

And That The Scriptures, Though Not Everywhere Free From Corruption, Or Entire, Or Clear, Are Uncorrupt, Sufficient, Clear, Entire In All Things Which Our Needful Faith Require.

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.

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

But Wild Ambition Loves To Slide, Not Stand, And Fortune's Ice Prefers To Virtue's Land.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Shame On The Body For Breaking Down While The Spirit Perseveres.

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.

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.

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?

Merit Challenges Envy.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Empire Is No More Than Power In Trust.

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