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Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

Ben Jonson

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
BEN JONSON

Dignity Life Losing
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

Exercise Men Writing
Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
BEN JONSON

Art Enemy Ignorance
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
Who will not judge him worthy to be robbed That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shows the felon where his treasure lies?
BEN JONSON

Doors Judgment Lying Treasure
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON

Beast Fats Mischief
How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!
BEN JONSON

Fortune Practise Sports
Honor’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times.
BEN JONSON

Hate Honor Men Time
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
BEN JONSON

Home Joy
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
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
BEN JONSON

Imperfect Light Opinion Things
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
BEN JONSON

Heaven Prayer Praying
I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
BEN JONSON

Compassion Justice Weakness
For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.
BEN JONSON

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

Past Winning Years
My thoughts and I were of another world.
BEN JONSON

Another World Thoughts

Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

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Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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