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It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.

Ben Jonson

Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
BEN JONSON

Past Winning Years
Guilt’s a terrible thing.
BEN JONSON

Guilt Terrible Things
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
BEN JONSON

Illness Neurosis Sick
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
BEN JONSON

Indeed Luck Names Woundy
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
BEN JONSON

Beast Flattery Tyrant
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
BEN JONSON

Book Looks Reader
Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
BEN JONSON

Boast Fall Pieces Wise
No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON

Easily May Men Taught Wise
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
BEN JONSON

Evil Hate Men Oppress
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
BEN JONSON

Love May Sake
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
BEN JONSON

Funeral Physicians Punishment
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
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON

Men Truth Use
Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth, and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always one and the same habit.
BEN JONSON

Ancient Heaven Silent
I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
BEN JONSON

Answer Lines Mention Penend Player Writing
Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.
BEN JONSON

Cigarette Smoke Men Smoking

It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.

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It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.

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Popular Authors

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