01c. 1666 ADHad I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, I could not half those horrid crimes repeat, Nor half the punishment those crimes have met.John Dryden / quote ↗
02c. 1666 ADYet, since the effects of Providence, we find, Are variously dispensed to human kind; That Vice triumphs and Virtue suffers here, A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear; Our reason prompts us to a future state, The last appeal from fortune and from fate: Where God’s all-righteous ways will be declared; The bad meet punishment, the good reward.John Dryden / quote ↗
03c. 1666 ADHeaven may forgive a crime to penitence, For Heaven can judge if penitence is true.John Dryden / quote ↗
04c. 1666 ADRevealed religion first informed thy sight, And Reason saw not till Faith sprung to light. Hence all thy natural worship takes the source: ’Tis Revelation, what thou think’st discourse, Else how com’st thou to see those truths so clear, Which so obscure to heathens did appear.John Dryden / quote ↗
05c. 1666 ADThy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight; O, teach me to believe Thee thus concealed, And search no farther than Thyself revealed.John Dryden / quote ↗
06c. 1666 ADTo threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard, Wrapped in his crimes, against the storm prepared; But when the milder beams of mercy play, He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.John Dryden / quote ↗
07c. 1666 ADFor he that but conceives a crime in thought, Contracts the danger of an actual fault; Then what must he expect, that still proceeds To finish sin, and work up thoughts in deeds?John Dryden / quote ↗
08c. 1666 ADImmortal honour, endless fame Attend the Almighty Father’s name; The Saviour Son be glorified, Who for lost man’s redemption died; And equal adoration be, Eternal Paraclete! to Thee.John Dryden / quote ↗
09c. 1666 ADRarely shall that path be trod, Which without horror leads to death’s abode. Some few, by temperance taught, approaching slow, To distant fate by easy journeys go; Gently they lay them down, as evening sheep On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep.John Dryden / quote ↗
10c. 1666 ADWant is a bitter and hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood. Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been, by need, to full perfection brought. Sharpness of wit, and active diligence; Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives, And, if in patience taken, mends our lives; For even that indigence that brings me low, Makes me myself, and Him above, to know.John Dryden / quote ↗
11c. 1666 ADStill let us, Lord, with grace be blest, Who in thy guardian mercy rest, Extend thy mercy’s arms to me, The weakest soul that trusts in Thee; And never let me lose thy love, ’Till I, even I, am crowned above.John Dryden / quote ↗
12c. 1666 ADAge oppresses by the same degrees that it instructs us, and permits not that our mortal members, which are frozen with our years, should retain the vigor of our youth.John Dryden / quote ↗
13c. 1666 ADAn ardent thirst of honor; a soul unsatisfied with all it has done, and an unextinguished desire of doing more.John Dryden / quote ↗
14c. 1666 ADA long series of ancestors shows the native lustre with advantage; but if he any way degenerate from his line, the least spot is visible on ermine.John Dryden / quote ↗
15c. 1666 ADIn tragedy and satire I maintain, against some critics, that this age and the last have excelled the ancients; and I would instance in Shakespeare of the former, in Dorset of the latter.John Dryden / quote ↗
16c. 1666 ADThese, wanting wit, affect gravity, and go by the name of solid men.John Dryden / quote ↗
18c. 1666 ADPoplicola's doors were opened on the outside, to save the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and where want itself was a powerful mediator.John Dryden / quote ↗
21c. 1666 ADFiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting: there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.John Dryden / quote ↗
22c. 1666 ADAffability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,—I mean good-nature,—are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.John Dryden / quote ↗
23c. 1666 ADHer head was bare, but for her native ornament of hair, which in a simple knot was tied above; sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!John Dryden / quote ↗
24c. 1666 ADInvention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of Apollo, is raised higher than the rest.John Dryden / quote ↗
