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No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.

Ben Jonson

Nothing is more short-lived than pride.
BEN JONSON

Live Pride Short
How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!
BEN JONSON

Fortune Practise Sports
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
Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSON

Anarchy Drinking Thinking
The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade.
BEN JONSON

Honesty Men Persuade Simple Two Wisdom
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
BEN JONSON

Age Delight Soul Wonder
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSON

Good Ready Writing
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?
BEN JONSON

Men Mistress Shadow
If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
BEN JONSON

Art Being Poverty True
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.
BEN JONSON

Art Judging Men
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
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON

Conceited English Plain Play
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
All concord’s born of contraries.
BEN JONSON

Born Contradiction Contrary
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.
BEN JONSON

Ignorance Men Science
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.
BEN JONSON

Another Grief Prayer Weariness Wish Wound

No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.

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No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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