To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
BEN JONSONAristotle 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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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.
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True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
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Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
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Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
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Peace is never more than one thought away.
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There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
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God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
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If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
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Let argument bear no unmusical sound.
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Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
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If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.
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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.
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Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
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The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
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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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A good dog deserves a good bone.
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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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He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.
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I do honor the very flea of his dog.
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No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
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Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
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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.
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O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
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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.
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The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
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To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.
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