John Dryden

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

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.

The wretched have no friends.

Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

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 …

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

He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind; Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind.

What flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent.

I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

'Tis not for nothing that we life pursue; It pays our hopes with something still that's new.

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

Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, Till our love was lov'd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead.

What precious drops are those Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.

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

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

All delays are dangerous in war.

He who servilely creeps after sense Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence.

Music...is inarticulate poesy.

The Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.