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To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

Ben Jonson

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty.
BEN JONSON

Law Men Mind Order Sense
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
BEN JONSON

Evil Hate Men Oppress
The burnt child dreads the fire.
BEN JONSON

Children Dread Fire
Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
BEN JONSON

Boast Fall Pieces Wise
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
BEN JONSON

Home Joy
Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
BEN JONSON

Art Common Lying Security Sleep
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
BEN JONSON

Folly Impudence Rudeness
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.
BEN JONSON

Ancestry Honor Noble
Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth, and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always one and the same habit.
BEN JONSON

Ancient Heaven Silent
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
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
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
That I might live alone once with my gold! O, ’tis a sweet companion! kind and true: A man may trust it when his father cheats him, Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf! That which makes all men false, is true itself.
BEN JONSON

Alone Brother Companions Money Sweet
A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON

Die Fall Flower Night Proportion
Hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat.
BEN JONSON

Care Cat Sorrow
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

To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

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To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

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