John Dryden Men Quotations

Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.

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

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

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat. Yet, fooled by hope, men favour the deceit; trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: to-morrow's falser than the former day.

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat yet, fool'd by hope, men favour the deceit

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

Those wanting wit affect gravity and go by the name of solid men

They who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, 'Arise, ye more than dead!' Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

For granting we have sinned, and that the offence Of man is made against Omnipotence, Some price that bears proportion must be paid, And infinite with infinite be weighed.

Men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes.

The elephant is never won by anger; nor must that man who would reclaim a lion take him by the teeth.

Railing in other men may be a crime, But ought to pass for mere instinct in him: Instinct he follows and no further knows, For to write verse with him is to transprose.

If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

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

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow's falser than the former day.

Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.

The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.

I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze.

Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to the' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

A good conscience is a port which is landlocked on every side, where no winds can possibly invade. There a man may not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed waters.

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

'Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed: In God 'tisglory; and when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.

Beware the fury of a patient man.

Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took; Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd.

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.

How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! Tosparethegrossness ofthenames, and to dothe thing yet moreseverely, isto drawa full face, and tomake the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing.

A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to makea malefactordiesweetly was only belonging toher husband.

Men are but children of a larger growth.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

Pleasure never comes sincere to man; but lent by heaven upon hard usury.

Lucky men are favorites of Heaven.

For danger levels man and brute And all are fellows in their need.

Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age, When no man dies for love, but on the stage.

Fortune, that with malicious joyDoes man her slave oppress,Proud of her office to destroy,Is seldom pleasd to bless.

In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land.

A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; Like Hectors in at every petty fray.

He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master.

God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.

The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother ten, Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he, who can call today his own.

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.

Beware of the fury of the patient man.

Dead men tell no tales.

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

Moderate sorrow Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man: But I have lov'd with such transcendent passion, I soar'd, at first, quite out of reason's view, And now am lost above it.

The bravest men are subject most to chance.

Virtue without success is a fair picture shown by an ill light; but lucky men are favorites of heaven; all own the chief, when fortune owns the cause.

It's a hard world, neighbors, if a man's oath must be his master.

They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.