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 JONSONBooks are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
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Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
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Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
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A good king is a public servant.
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Cut Men’s throats with whisperings.
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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.
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The way to rise is to obey and please.
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Who will not judge him worthy to be robbed That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shows the felon where his treasure lies?
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That I might live alone once with my gold! O, ’tis a sweet companion! kind and true: A man may trust it when his father cheats him, Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf! That which makes all men false, is true itself.
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It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could’st make the time to do so too; I’ll wind thee up no more.
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Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
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He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
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Silence in woman is like speech in man.
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For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
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Fortune, that favors fools.
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Blueness doth express trueness.
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How near to good is what is fair!
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Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.
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Your highest female grace is silence.
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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.
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And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow’d them with her odorous foot.
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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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He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.
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Guilt’s a terrible thing.
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Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
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Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
BEN JONSON