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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

Ben Jonson

I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
BEN JONSON

Men Popularity Slave
Drink today, and drown all sorrow; You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow; Best, while you have it, use your breath; There is no drinking after death.
BEN JONSON

Drinking Sorrow Use
Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSON

Anarchy Drinking Thinking
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
BEN JONSON

Love May Sake
Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time’s deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
BEN JONSON

Act Apes Courage Eye Mirror Time
I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind, For else it could not be, That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my love behind.
BEN JONSON

Blind Love Slight Thinking
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
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.
BEN JONSON

Answer Lines Mention Penend Player Writing
A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON

Die Fall Flower Night Proportion
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
BEN JONSON

Gratitude Men Needs
Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet’s horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.
BEN JONSON

Horse Plies Wine
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON

Sounded Swelling Use Words
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON

June Life Perfect Summer
You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
BEN JONSON

Art Fighting Winning
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
BEN JONSON

Men Strange Wrecks
Whosoever 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.
BEN JONSON

Ancient Heaven Silent

He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

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