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All concord’s born of contraries.

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

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

Praise Strikes Strokes
The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
BEN JONSON

Birthday Praying Return
The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
BEN JONSON

Conceited Fools Rome Two
A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.
BEN JONSON

Aspersion Choose Good Journey Men
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.
BEN JONSON

Courage Suffering Valor
Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.
BEN JONSON

Father Greatness Son
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
BEN JONSON

Applause Crowns Mind Virtue
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
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.
BEN JONSON

Act Apes Courage Eye Mirror Time
I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
BEN JONSON

Men Popularity Slave
Let argument bear no unmusical sound.
BEN JONSON

Argument Bears Sound
He was not of an age, but for all time!
BEN JONSON

Age Time
A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
BEN JONSON

Black Brain House
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.
BEN JONSON

Men Salt Way
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
BEN JONSON

Creeds Doctrine Good Waiting

All concord’s born of contraries.

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All concord’s born of contraries.

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