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

Ben Jonson

I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
BEN JONSON

Action Calumny Watches
Peace is never more than one thought away.
BEN JONSON

Away Harmony More Peace
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.
BEN JONSON

Art Causes Drest Near Sweet
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.
BEN JONSON

Blow Slumber Wind
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON

Sounded Swelling Use Words
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON

June Life Perfect Summer
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

Glasses Men Spring
Blueness doth express trueness.
BEN JONSON

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

Relax Reputation Ruins
He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
BEN JONSON

Glory Servant Virtue
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

Broken Honor Long
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.
BEN JONSON

Ancestry Honor Noble
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.
BEN JONSON

Acknowledge Ass Devil
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
BEN JONSON

Passion Spiritual Understanding
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
BEN JONSON

Book Looks Reader

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

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

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