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If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

Ben Jonson

He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.
BEN JONSON

Honesty Vulgar
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
BEN JONSON

Men Strange Wrecks
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
BEN JONSON

Friendship Happiness Positive
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
Fortune, that favors fools.
BEN JONSON

Favors Fool Fortune
In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
BEN JONSON

Absence Hope Love Miss Sweet
The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
BEN JONSON

Air Echoes Parted Sweet Thence
Where it concerns himself, Who’s angry at a slander, makes it true.
BEN JONSON

Angry Concern Slander
Our whole life is like a play.
BEN JONSON

Life Play Whole
O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
BEN JONSON

Fear Men Passion
Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time’s deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
BEN JONSON

Act Apes Courage Eye Mirror Time
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.
BEN JONSON

Conceited English Plain Play
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.
BEN JONSON

Fall Love Stars
Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.
BEN JONSON

Fruit Sweet Taken

If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

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If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

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