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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

Ben Jonson

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
BEN JONSON

Half Heaven Venture
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
BEN JONSON

Folly Impudence Rudeness
True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
BEN JONSON

Joy Speak Tongue
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
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON

Sight Swans Sweet
For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.
BEN JONSON

Intermission Newest Present Themselves
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.
BEN JONSON

Art Ask Matter Praise Style
Nor for my peace will I go far, As wanderers do, that still do roam, But make my strengths, such as they are, Here in my bosom, and at home.
BEN JONSON

Home Stills Wanderers
Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
BEN JONSON

Heart Hypocrisy Spread
Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
BEN JONSON

Faces Home House
Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
BEN JONSON

Disease Mean Music
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
BEN JONSON

Enemy Grief Men
Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
BEN JONSON

Art Enemy Ignorance
All concord’s born of contraries.
BEN JONSON

Born Contradiction Contrary
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
BEN JONSON

Affected Eloquence Foolish
A good dog deserves a good bone.
BEN JONSON

Bones Canine Dog
No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
BEN JONSON

Glasses Men Speech
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
BEN JONSON

Funeral Physicians Punishment
A good king is a public servant.
BEN JONSON

Good King Kings Servant
Cut Men’s throats with whisperings.
BEN JONSON

Cutting Men Whispering
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.
BEN JONSON

Exercise Men Writing
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
BEN JONSON

Good Loss Men Rise
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.
BEN JONSON

Benefits Done Men
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 JONSON

Men Teaching Wise
To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
BEN JONSON

Communication Motivational Wise
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
BEN JONSON

Disease Talking

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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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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Popular Authors

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