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 JONSONQueen 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
BEN JONSON -
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.
BEN JONSON -
I do honor the very flea of his dog.
BEN JONSON -
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON -
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON -
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON -
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
BEN JONSON -
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
The burnt child dreads the fire.
BEN JONSON -
I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
BEN JONSON -
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
BEN JONSON -
Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
BEN JONSON -
There is no bounty to be showed to such As have real goodness: Bounty is A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act Can take effect on them that have no power Of equal habitude to apprehend it?
BEN JONSON -
Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON