Quotes By John Dryden

The first is the law, the last prerogative.

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; but they ne'er pardon who have done wrong.

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.

Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.

Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

Beware the fury of a 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.

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

For they conquer who believe they can.

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.

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!

The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

Dancing is the poetry of the foot.

They that possess the prince possess the laws.

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.

God never made His work for man to mend.

Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.

Even victors are by victories undone.

Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail.

To die is landing on some distant shore.

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.

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.

Love works a different way in different minds, the fool it enlightens and the wise it blinds.

There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.