The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
BEN JONSONHow ready is heaven to those that pray!
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
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True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
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It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
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He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
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We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
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As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
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He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.
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Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.
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Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
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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.
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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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How ready is heaven to those that pray!
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In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
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Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
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He was not of an age, but for all time!
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It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
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You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
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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?
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The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
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Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.
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Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
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Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
BEN JONSON