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Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!

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
The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
BEN JONSON

Men Money
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
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
It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
BEN JONSON

Ears Speak Understanding
He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON

Art Fool Inspirational
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSON

Good Ready Writing
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON

Discourse Harsh Speech
One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
BEN JONSON

Character Trouble Women
If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
BEN JONSON

Art Being Poverty True
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
BEN JONSON

Little Wise World
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
BEN JONSON

Age Delight Soul Wonder
All concord’s born of contraries.
BEN JONSON

Born Contradiction Contrary
I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
BEN JONSON

Compassion Justice Weakness
Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.
BEN JONSON

Father Greatness Son
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
BEN JONSON

Friendship Happiness Positive

Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!

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Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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