Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.
BEN JONSONThe day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
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Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
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Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
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It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
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Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
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O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
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I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
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How ready is heaven to those that pray!
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Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
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He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.
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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
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Hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat.
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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
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Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.
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I do honor the very flea of his dog.
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I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.
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Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
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I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
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Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.
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Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
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Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
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Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.
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No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
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That old bald cheater, Time.
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No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.
BEN JONSON