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How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!

Ben Jonson

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

Praise Strikes Strokes
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
One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
BEN JONSON

Character Trouble Women
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
BEN JONSON

Heart Hypocrisy Spread
Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
BEN JONSON

Age Example Fallen Good Youth
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
It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
BEN JONSON

Dear Estimation Hypocrisy
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
Calumnies are answered best with silence.
BEN JONSON

Advice Silence
Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Conscience Law Rebel Self Soul
He was not of an age, but for all time!
BEN JONSON

Age Time
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
BEN JONSON

Mind Punishment Vices
O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
BEN JONSON

Fear Men Passion
Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
BEN JONSON

Frail Memories Mind
Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.
BEN JONSON

Boys Mean Money
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
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
BEN JONSON

Heaven Prayer Praying
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
BEN JONSON

Disease Talking
For he that once is good, is ever great.
BEN JONSON

Good Greatness Once
True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
BEN JONSON

Joy Speak Tongue
My thoughts and I were of another world.
BEN JONSON

Another World Thoughts
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON

Men Truth Use
It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.
BEN JONSON

Giving Men Virtue
It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could’st make the time to do so too; I’ll wind thee up no more.
BEN JONSON

Enough Pulse Sleep Time Wind
If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man’s being a good poet without first being a good man.
BEN JONSON

Good Man Men Office
Tell troth and shame the devil.
BEN JONSON

Devil Shame Truth

How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!

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How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!

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Popular Authors

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