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
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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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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 -
Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
BEN JONSON -
It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.
BEN JONSON -
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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 -
How near to good is what is fair!
BEN JONSON -
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The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
BEN JONSON -
Calumnies are answered best with silence.
BEN JONSON -
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There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
BEN JONSON -
… the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.
BEN JONSON -
A good poet’s made as well as born.
BEN JONSON -
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON