Skip to content

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.

— John Dryden Britannia Rediviva (1688)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Britannia Rediviva (1688), l. 1
Work: Britannia Rediviva, 1688
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by John Dryden

Love taught him shame, and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

Cymon and Iphigenia (1700)

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

Tyrannick Love (1669)

They say everything in the world is good for something.

The Spanish Friar (1681)

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

The Maiden Queen (1667)

A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.

Amphitryon (1690)

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.

Amphitryon (1690)

This is the porcelain clay of humankind.

Don Sebastian (1690)

All John Dryden quotes →

Topics

Prayer

More quotes by John Dryden

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

Aureng-Zebe (1676)

Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please.

Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.

The Works of Virgil (1697)

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

Œdipus (1679)

All John Dryden quotes →

You may also like

When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.

Basil of Caesarea

Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.

Plato

To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! … that is what I call prayer.

Claude Debussy Claude Debussy: His Life and Works (1933)

"O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."

John F. Kennedy

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.