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 JONSONForbear, 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
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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.
BEN JONSON -
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON -
Blueness doth express trueness.
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How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!
BEN JONSON -
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON -
A good life is a main argument.
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O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
BEN JONSON -
The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
BEN JONSON -
He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
Fortune, that favors fools.
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Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
BEN JONSON -
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?
BEN JONSON -
Man and wife make one fool.
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Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need
BEN JONSON