John Dryden
John Dryden
John Drydenwas an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668...
soul answers enough
The province of the soul is large enough to fill up every cranny of your time, and leave you much to answer for if one wretch be damned by your neglect.
reading gentleman half
Uncertain whose the narrowest span,--the clown unread, or half-read gentleman.
art proud slave
To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free, These are imperial arts.
thee god-provides goods
Take the goods the gods provide thee.
stars moon bears
Ye moon and stars, bear witness to the truth.
grace-and-mercy heaven attributes
Good Heaven, whose darling attribute we find is boundless grace, and mercy to mankind, abhors the cruel.
silence midnight
Hushed as midnight silence.
imagination soul enthusiasm
Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.
poetry heroic human-nature
Heroic poetry has ever been esteemed the greatest work of human nature.
heaven free-will endure
The good we have enjoyed from Heaven's free will, and shall we murmur to endure the ill?
rose lasts sweetness
Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.
want praise dare
He wants worth who dares not praise a foe.
reason good-nature good-sense
Good sense and good nature are never separated; and good nature is the product of right reason.
pain dying pleasure
But dying is a pleasure / When living is a pain.