Date: 1693

"Why have I Learn'd, say'st thou, if thus confin'd, / I choak the Noble Vigour of my Mind? / Know, my wild Fig-Tree, which in Rocks is bred, / Will split the Quarry, and shoot out the Head, / Fine Fruits of Learning!"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"But let us for the Gods a Gift prepare, / Which the Great Man's Great Chargers cannot bear / Soul, where Laws both Humane and Divine, / In Practice more than Speculation shine: / A genuine Virtue, of a vigorous kind, / Pure in the last recesses of the Mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"Yet, thy moist Clay is pliant to Command; / Unwrought, and easie to the Potter's hand: / Now take the Mold; now bend thy Mind to feel / The first sharp Motions of the Forming Wheel."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"Thy Chaps are fallen, and thy Frame dis-joyn'd: / Thy Body as dissolv'd as is thy Mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"Learn Wretches; learn the Motions of the Mind: / Why you were made, for what you were design'd; / And the great Moral End of Humane Kind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"I grant this true: But, still, the deadly wound / Is in thy Soul: 'Tis there thou art not sound."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"None, none descends into himself; to find / The secret Imperfections of his Mind: / But ev'ry one is Eagle-ey'd, to see / Another's Faults, and his Deformity."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"Knock on my Heart; for thou hast skill to find / If it sound solid, or be fill'd with Wind; / And, thro the veil of words, thou view'st the naked Mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"But if thy Passions lord it in thy Breast, / Art thou not still a Slave, and still opprest."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1697

"But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts, / Had made impression in the people's hearts,"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)