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Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

— John Dryden Mac Flecknoe (1682)

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: ll. 205–208
Work: Mac Flecknoe, 1682
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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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.