black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

Ben Jonson

Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.
BEN JONSON

Courage Suffering Valor
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?
BEN JONSON

Doors Judgment Lying Treasure
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
Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
BEN JONSON

Frail Memories Mind
A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t’ his other virtues, They’re all unseason’d without it.
BEN JONSON

Men Salt Way
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
BEN JONSON

Mind Punishment Vices
Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSON

Anarchy Drinking Thinking
Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?
BEN JONSON

Men Mistress Shadow
For he that once is good, is ever great.
BEN JONSON

Good Greatness Once
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
BEN JONSON

Age Delight Soul Wonder
How near to good is what is fair!
BEN JONSON

Fairs Good Goodness Near
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.
BEN JONSON

Good Time Illustrate Men Stars
Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us tow’rds the port May dash us on the shoals. The steersman’s part Is vigilance, or blow it rough or smooth.
BEN JONSON

Blow Slumber Wind
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 JONSON

Good Man Men Office
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh

O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Jonson Quotes