John Dryden Quotes on Man (19 Quotes)

A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

The sooner you treat your son as a man, the sooner he will be one.

They who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.

Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.

He Shakespeare was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul . . . He was naturally learned he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature he looked inwards, and found her there.

I am as free as nature first made man.

She knows her man, and when you rant or swear, Can draw you to her with a single hair.

Beware the fury of a patient man.

By education most have been misled; So they believe, because they were bred. The priest continues where the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother ten, Man looks aloft and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

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.

But now the world's o'er stocked with prudent men.

She knows her man, and when you rant and swear, Can draw you to her with a single hair.

Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd.

What is man, when his own wish prevails!

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.... He was naturally learnd he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature he looked inwards, and found her there.... He is many times flat, insipid his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

In pious times 'ere priest craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin When man, on many, multiply'd his kind Ere one to one was, cursedly, confined When Nature prompted, and no law deny'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride.

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