Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSONAffliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSONThere is no bounty to be showed to such As have real goodness: Bounty is A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act Can take effect on them that have no power Of equal habitude to apprehend it?
BEN JONSONConfound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSONStill 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.
BEN JONSONWere Guilt is, Rage and Courage doth abound.
BEN JONSONHeaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
BEN JONSONLet those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSONPopular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSONI 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 JONSONWhere dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
BEN JONSONHow ready is heaven to those that pray!
BEN JONSONAmbition, 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.
BEN JONSONNor 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 JONSONAnd where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow’d them with her odorous foot.
BEN JONSONVice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
BEN JONSONNor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON