black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

Ben Jonson

Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.
BEN JONSON

Father Greatness Son
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright.
BEN JONSON

Chair Light Queens Seated Sleep
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
BEN JONSON

Gratitude Men Needs
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
BEN JONSON

Fear Hell No Prisoner
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
BEN JONSON

Beast Flattery Tyrant
As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
BEN JONSON

Art Ask Matter Praise Style
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
Hell itself must yield to industry.
BEN JONSON

Hell Industry Yield
My thoughts and I were of another world.
BEN JONSON

Another World Thoughts
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
Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast, Still to be powder’d, all perfum’d. Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.
BEN JONSON

Art Causes Drest Near Sweet
The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.
BEN JONSON

Acknowledge Ass Devil
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
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh
Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
BEN JONSON

Clothes Countenance Wit
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

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Jonson Quotes