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[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

Ben Jonson

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON

Sight Swans Sweet
Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us tow’rds the port May dash us on the shoals. The steersman’s part Is vigilance, or blow it rough or smooth.
BEN JONSON

Blow Slumber Wind
Honor’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times.
BEN JONSON

Hate Honor Men Time
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
Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
BEN JONSON

Beer Drink Wells
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
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON

June Life Perfect Summer
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
BEN JONSON

Passion Spiritual Understanding
Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
BEN JONSON

May Poetry War
True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.
BEN JONSON

Fine Melancholy Perfect Wit
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.
BEN JONSON

Crafts Scratches Succeed
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
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
Freedom doth with degree dispense.
BEN JONSON

Degree Dispense Freedom
Sweet meat must have sour sauce.
BEN JONSON

Meat Swans Sweet
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
BEN JONSON

Relax Reputation Ruins

[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

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[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

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