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.
BEN JONSONAmbition, 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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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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O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
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It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
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Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
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Nothing is more short-lived than pride.
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Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
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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.
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Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
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I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
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Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.
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Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
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The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
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I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation
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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.
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Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them.
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I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
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Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet’s horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.
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Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
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There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
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Hell itself must yield to industry.
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Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
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When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
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Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
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Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
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The way to rise is to obey and please.
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How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!
BEN JONSON