Ben jonson quotes

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty.

What excellent fools religion makes of men.

To struggle when hope is banished! To live when life's salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that's vanished- To endure, and go calmly on!

Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine.

A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t' his other virtues, They're all unseason'd without it.

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.

Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time's deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.

I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.

A good dog deserves a good bone.

There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.

It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.

Your highest female grace is silence.

If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.

Drink today, and drown all sorrow; You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow; Best, while you have it, use your breath; There is no drinking after death.

Nothing is more short-lived than pride.

The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

Hell itself must yield to industry.

Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink

He was not of an age, but for all time!

He threatens many that hath injured one.

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.

Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.

Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.

Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.

Sweet meat must have sour sauce.

Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.

The way to rise is to obey and please.

It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.

Peace is never more than one thought away.

Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.

Let argument bear no unmusical sound.

[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could'st make the time to do so too; I'll wind thee up no more.

Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.

Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.

Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

A good king is a public servant.

A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.

My thoughts and I were of another world.

Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

Man and wife make one fool.

The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.

If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being a good poet without first being a good man.

Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts in vain: Suns that set may rise again; But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys.

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?

I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us tow'rds the port May dash us on the shoals. The steersman's part Is vigilance, or blow it rough or smooth.

Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.

True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright.

Confound these ancestors... They've stolen our best ideas!

I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.

A good poet's made as well as born.

How ready is heaven to those that pray!

Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

That old bald cheater, Time.

He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.

Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.

Nor for my peace will I go far, As wanderers do, that still do roam, But make my strengths, such as they are, Here in my bosom, and at home.

Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast, Still to be powder'd, all perfum'd. Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.

You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.

In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

If I freely may discover What should please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity; Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes, and soon destroying, Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor to hard; All extremes I would have barr'd.

Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.

Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.

Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.

Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.

Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.

Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.

No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.

Blueness doth express trueness.

To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.

The burnt child dreads the fire.

I'll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.

When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

A good life is a main argument.

The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.

All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.

I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.

He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.

They, who know no evil, will suspect none.

Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalm'd; but he that will Govern and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails; What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers; Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop 'em; What strands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten her.

Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.

Princes that would their people should do well Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their limitations, and regard of laws: A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.

Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.

Our whole life is like a play.

A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be.

I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.

Fortune, that favors fools.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.

If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick

I do honor the very flea of his dog.

There is no bounty to be showed to such As have real goodness: Bounty is A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act Can take effect on them that have no power Of equal habitude to apprehend it?

The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.

Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .

Calumnies are answered best with silence.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.