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 JONSONMen 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.
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Queen 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.
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Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
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There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
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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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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.
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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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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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Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.
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If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
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One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
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The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
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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.
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The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.
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Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON






