Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
BEN JONSONIt is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat.
BEN JONSON -
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
BEN JONSON -
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.
BEN JONSON -
Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
BEN JONSON -
The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
BEN JONSON -
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.
BEN JONSON -
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON -
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
BEN JONSON -
Sweet meat must have sour sauce.
BEN JONSON -
Man and wife make one fool.
BEN JONSON -
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.
BEN JONSON -
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!
BEN JONSON -
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.
BEN JONSON -
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.
BEN JONSON -
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
BEN JONSON