JOHN DRYDEN

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

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”

“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.”

“Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. ”

“There is a pleasure sure in being mad which none but madmen know.”

“ Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.” ― Absalom and Achitophel

“But far more numerous was the herd of such,Who think too little and who talk too much.” ― Absalom and Achitophel “For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before,That change they covet makes them suffer more.All other errors but disturb a state;But innovation is the blow of fate.” ― Absalom and Achitophel

“I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again.”

“…So when the last and dreadful hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And Music shall untune the sky”

“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 lived today.”

“Secret guilt is by silence revealed.”

“Errors like straws upon the surface flow: Who would search for pearls must dive below.”

“When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:To-morrow's falser than the former day;Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blestWith some new joys, cuts off what we possesst.” ― Aureng-Zebe

“Death in itself is nothing; but we fear.To be we know not what, we know not where.” ― Aureng-Zebe

“Love is love's reward.”

“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.”

“Welcome, thou kind deceiver!Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key,Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,Even steal us from ourselves.” ― All for Love

“Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.”

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”

“For you may palm upon us new for old: All, as they say, all that glitters, is not gold.”

“None but the brave deserves the fair.”

“Boldness is a mask for fear, however great.”

“Night came, but unattended with repose.Alone she came, no sleep their eyes to close.Alone and black she came; no friendly stars arose.”

“Love is a passion which kindles honor into noble acts.”

“Order is the greatest grace”

“The winds that never moderation knew,Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge Their straighten'd lungs or conscious of their charge.”

“Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write,Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.”

“Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck.”

“Where'e're I go, my Soul shall stay with thee:'Tis but my Shadow I take away...” ― King Arthur: Or, the British Worthy. a Masque. as It Is Performed at the Theatre-Royal in Crow-Street.

“None are so busy as the fool and knave.”

“Whatever is, is in its causes just;But purblind manSees but a part o' th' chain; the nearest link;His eyes not carrying to that equal beamThat poises all above.” ― Oedipus: A Tragedy

“Dancing is the poetry of the foot.”

“Of no distemper, of no blast he died,But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;Till like a clock worn out with eating time,The wheels of weary life at last stood still.” ― Oedipus: A Tragedy

“Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail, Our lion now will foreign foes assail.”

“If others in the same Glass better see'Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:For my Salvation must its Doom receiveNot from what others, but what I believe.” ― Oedipus: A Tragedy

“All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.”

“But dying is a pleasure / When living is a pain.”

“Dim as the borrowed beams of moons and starsTo lonely, weary, wandering travelers,Is Reason to the soul; and, as on highThose rolling fires discover but the sky,Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering rayWas lent, not to assure our doubtful way,But guide us upward to a better day.” ― Religio Laici, or A Layman's Faith

“A sigh or tear perhaps she'll give,But love on pity cannot live:Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,And love with love is only paid,Tell her my pains so fast increaseThat soon it will be past redress;For the wretch that speechless lies,Attends but death to close his eyes.”

JOHN BUNYAN

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” “When you pray, rather let your heart be without words then your words without heart.”

“Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.” ― The Pilgrim's Progress

“The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.” ― The Pilgrim's Progress

ALEXANDER POPE

“What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.” ― Essay on Man and Other Poems

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

“Act well your part; there all the honour lies.” ― An Essay on Man

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;

Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little or too much;Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!” ― An Essay on Man “Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” ― An Essay on Man

“Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.” ― An Essay on Man “All Nature is but art, unknown to theeAll chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good.” ― An Essay on Man

“Whatever is, is right.” ― An Essay on Man

“An honest man's the noblest work of God” ― An Essay on Man

“chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd.” ― An Essay on Man

“All forms that perish other forms supply,(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,They rise, they break, and to that sea return.” ― An Essay on Man “Order is heaven's first law.” ― An Essay on Man

“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.” ― An Essay on Man

“Remembrance and reflection how allied!What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!” ― Essay on Man and Other Poems

“In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.” ― An Essay on Man & Satires

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,and drinking largely sobers us again.” ― An Essay on Criticism “Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Our judgments, like our watches, nonego just alike, yet each believes his own” ― An Essay on Criticism

“True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives us back the image of our mind.As shades more sweetly recommend the light,So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not,And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Music resembles poetry, in eachAre nameless graces which no methods teach,And which a master hand alone can reach.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,But are not critics to their judgment, too?” ― An Essay on Criticism “In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be,In every work regard the writer's end,Since none can compass more than they intend;And if the means be just, the conduct true,Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.” ― An Essay on Criticism

Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,Sure some to vex, but never all to please.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Averse alike to flatter, or offend;Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“True wit is nature to advantage dress'd,What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.” ― Essay on Criticism: Edited with Introduction and Notes

“Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.” ― An Essay on Criticism

“Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,With too much quickness ever to be taught,With too much thinking to have common thought:You purchase pain with all that joy can give,And die of nothing but a rage to live.” ― Moral Essays “If I am right, Thy grace impartStill in the right to stay;If I am wrong, O, teach my heartTo find that better way!” ― Moral Essays

“Men, some to business take, some to pleasure take; but every woman is at heart a rake” ― Moral Essays

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d” ― Eloisa to Abelard “Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain” ― Eloisa to Abelard

Already written - wash it out, my tears!In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeyes.” ― Eloisa to Abelard

“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.” ― The Rape of the Lock “Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.” ― The Rape of the Lock

“What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things...” ― The Rape of the Lock

“Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide:If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.” ― The Rape of the Lock

“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.” ― The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems

“While pensive poets painful vigils keep,Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.” ― The Dunciad

“Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;Light dies before thy uncreating word:Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;And universal darkness buries all.” ― The Dunciad “Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.” ― The Dunciad

“Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise.Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.” ― The Dunciad

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

“If you want to know what God thinks about money just look at the people He gives it to.” “Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.” ― Miscellanies in Verse and Prose.

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mienAs to be hated needs but to be seen;Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” “No woman ever hates a manfor being in love with her;but mainly a woman hates aman for being her friend.”

“To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart”

“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.” ― Letters of the Late Alexander Pope, Esq. to a Lady. Never Before Published “Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire. ”

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”

“Of all the causes which conspire to blindMan's erring judgement, and misguide the mind,What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.”

“The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,Are what ten thousand envy and adore:All, all look up, with reverential Awe,At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law:While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry-`'Nothing is sacred now but Villainy'- Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I”

“Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd.Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, Where mixed with Gods, his lov'd idea lies:O write it not, my hand - the name appears

“This long disease, my life.” ― Epistles and Satires of Alexander Pope

“Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labor when the end was rest, Indulged the day that housed their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.” ― Imitations of Horace

“Know thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.”

“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded”

“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

-Vital spark of heav'nly flame!Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

“All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good.And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, 'Whatever is, is right.”

“Happy the man, whose wish and careA few paternal acres bound,Content to breathe his native airIn his own ground.”

“Some who grow dull religious straight commenceAnd gain in morals what they lose in sense.” ― Minor Poems

“Then most our trouble still when most admired,And still the more we give, the more required;

“For he lives twice who can at once employ,The present well, and e’en the past enjoy.”

“Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to seeMen not afraid of God afraid of me.”

“Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew:Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.”

“For forms of Government let fools contest. Whate'er is best administered is best.”

“No place so sacred from such frops is barred Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Churchyard Na fly to alter there they'll talk you dead For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” “What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heaven pursue.”

“Sure flattery never traveled so far as three thousand miles; it is now only for truth, which over takes all things, to reach you at this distance.”

“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stoneTell where I lie.”

“True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.”

“One science only will one genius fit/ So vast is art, so narrow human wit” “Sir, I admit your general rule,That every poet is a fool.But you yourself may prove to show it,Every fool is not a poet.”

“Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer Being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall.”

“To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.”

“For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends”

“Where beams of imagination play,The memory's soft figures melt away.”

“Invention furnishes Art with all her materials, and without it, Judgement itself can at best but steal wisely.”