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I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

Ben Jonson

Drink today, and drown all sorrow; You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow; Best, while you have it, use your breath; There is no drinking after death.
BEN JONSON

Drinking Sorrow Use
Honor’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times.
BEN JONSON

Hate Honor Men Time
It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
BEN JONSON

Done Noble Person Wrong
Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
BEN JONSON

Death Good Man Men
Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?
BEN JONSON

Men Mistress Shadow
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
BEN JONSON

Affected Eloquence Foolish
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
Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Conscience Law Rebel Self Soul
I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
BEN JONSON

Glory Greed Wealth
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
BEN JONSON

Heaven Prayer Praying
Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.
BEN JONSON

Court Deny Mistress
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
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON

Discourse Harsh Speech
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
BEN JONSON

Book Looks Reader
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSON

Affliction Person Prayer Wicked

I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

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I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

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