black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Guilt’s a terrible thing.

Ben Jonson

I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.
BEN JONSON

Broken Honor Long
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
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
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.
BEN JONSON

Art Eye Neglect Simplicity Sweet
The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
BEN JONSON

Men Money
I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
BEN JONSON

Action Calumny Watches
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON

Sounded Swelling Use Words
The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.
BEN JONSON

Acknowledge Ass Devil
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
To struggle when hope is banished! To live when life’s salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that’s vanished- To endure, and go calmly on!
BEN JONSON

Dream Life Struggle Vanish
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
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
Princes that would their people should do well Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their limitations, and regard of laws: A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.
BEN JONSON

Example Law Men Patteren People
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
BEN JONSON

Little Wise World
Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
BEN JONSON

Dream Hate Hatred
We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
BEN JONSON

Fashion Quality Women

Guilt’s a terrible thing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Guilt’s a terrible thing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Jonson Quotes