Quotes from John Dryden

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

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 liv'd today.

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.

War he sung is toil and trouble Honour but an empty bubble.

My right eye itches, some good luck is near.

It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events because in herself she is nothing but is ruled by prudence.

Love either finds equality or makes it.

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

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.

They, who write ill, and they, who ne'er durst write, Turn critics, out of mere revenge and spite: A playhouse gives them fame; and up there starts, From a mean fifth-rate wit, a man of parts... Our author fears those critics as his fate; And those he fears, by consequence must hate... Howe'er, the poet's safe enough to day, They cannot censure an unfinished play...

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

When a man's life is under debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.

Beware of the fury of the patient man.

There is a Pleasure sure In being mad, which none but Mad-men know! Let me indulge it, let me gaze for ever!

A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego, Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been As free from sorrow as he was from sin.

By chase our long-lived fathers earn'd their food, Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood; But we, their sons, a pamper'd race of men, Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise, for cure, on exercise depend: God never made his work for man to mend.

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

God never made his work for man to mend.

"Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can cal today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today."

For age but tastes of pleasures youth devours.

These are the effects of doting age,--vain doubts and idle cares and over caution.