A small pair of cream children's shoes stands beside larger brown shoes on a warm wooden floor.

Original artwork, not a still

All for Love

John Dryden

Men are but children of a larger growth.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker suggests that adults are essentially children who have simply grown bigger. Beneath maturity and status, the same appetites, vanities and impulses remain, only on a larger scale. The line is wry and mildly deflating, puncturing grown-up self-importance without necessarily being cruel.

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