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John Dryden Quotes

1631–1700 England

John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.

England
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Also known as: Dryden

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537 quotes

Thus then my loved Euryalus appears;
He looks the prop of my declining years.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

When the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
The fat manure with heay’nly fire is warm’d.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Apollo check’d my pride, and bade me feed
My fatt’ning flocks, nor dare beyond the reed.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Let Araby extol her happy coast,
Her fragrant flow’rs, her trees with precious tears,
Her second harvests.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

At harvest-home, and on the shearing day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The wiser madman did for virtue toil
A thorny, or at least a barren, soil.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Leave to fathom such high points as these,
Nor be ambitious, ere the time, to please;
Unseasonably wise, till age and cares
Have form’d thy soul to manage great affairs.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Were virtue by descent, a noble name
Could never villanize his father’s fame;
But, as the first, the last of all the line
Would, like the sun, ev’n in descending, shine.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

That we may angels seem, we paint them elves,
And are but satires to set up ourselves.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Shadwell write.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

His knowledge in the noblest useful arts
Was such dead authors could not give,
But habitudes with those who live.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

I must disclaim whate’er he can express;
His grovelling sense will show my passion less.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

'Tis not indeed my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Every scribbling man
Grows a fop as fast as e’er he can,
Prunes up, and asks his oracle the glass
If pink or purple best become his face?

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

When bounteous Autumn rears his head,
He joys to pull the ripen’d pear.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Much labour is required in trees;
Well must the ground be digg’d, and better dress’d,
New soil to make, and meliorate the rest.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The peasant, innocent of all these ills,
With crooked ploughs the fertile fallow tills,
And the round year with daily labour fills.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

To dress the vines new labour is required,
Nor must the painful husbandman be tired.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,
Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Live then, thou great encourager of arts!
Live ever in our thankful hearts.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.