A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
BEN JONSONWhosoever 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
-
-
The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
BEN JONSON -
The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
BEN JONSON -
Sweet meat must have sour sauce.
BEN JONSON -
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
BEN JONSON -
Man and wife make one fool.
BEN JONSON -
Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
BEN JONSON -
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
BEN JONSON -
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
BEN JONSON -
Nor for my peace will I go far, As wanderers do, that still do roam, But make my strengths, such as they are, Here in my bosom, and at home.
BEN JONSON -
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
BEN JONSON -
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
BEN JONSON -
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
BEN JONSON -
Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
BEN JONSON -
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON -
You are not now to think what’s best to do, As in beginnings, but what must be done, Being thus enter’d; and slip no advantage That may secure you. Let them call it mischief; When it is past, and prosper’d , ’twill be virtue.
BEN JONSON






