Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSONNor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Peace is never more than one thought away.
BEN JONSON -
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
BEN JONSON -
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
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 -
Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
BEN JONSON -
I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
BEN JONSON -
I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
BEN JONSON -
Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
BEN JONSON -
O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
BEN JONSON -
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
BEN JONSON -
It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
BEN JONSON -
A good dog deserves a good bone.
BEN JONSON