| John Dryden Quotes |
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The people have a right supreme To make their kings, for Kings are made for them. All Empire is no more than Power in Trust, Which when resumed, can be no longer just. Successions for the general good designed, In its own wrong a Nation cannot bind. Beware the fury of a patient man. All human things are subject to decay, And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey This Fleck not found, who like Augustus young Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute. We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. Reason to rule but mercy to forgive The first is the law, the last prerogative. Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide. Death in itself is nothing but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where. How can finite grasp infinity The gates of Hell are open night and day Smooth the descent, and easy is the way But, to return, and view the cheerful skies In this, the task and mighty labor lies. Look around the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue. 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. Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are. A mob is the scum that rises up most when the nation boils. You see through love, and that deludes your sight, As what is straight seems crooked through the water. Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call to-day his own He who, secure within, can say, To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue. They think to little who talk to much. We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure. Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace. But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little and who talk too much. Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare. The conscience of a people is their power. |





