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A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

Ben Jonson

No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.
BEN JONSON

Morning Regret Simple
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON

Sight Swans Sweet
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
BEN JONSON

Enemy Grief Men
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
BEN JONSON

Home Joy
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
Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
BEN JONSON

Past Winning Years
I do honor the very flea of his dog.
BEN JONSON

Dog Hero Honor
Silence in woman is like speech in man.
BEN JONSON

Men Silence Speech
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
BEN JONSON

Book Looks Reader
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
True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
BEN JONSON

Joy Speak Tongue
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
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
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
BEN JONSON

Evil Hate Men Oppress
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
O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
BEN JONSON

Forget Sun Time
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
It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.
BEN JONSON

Ancestry Honor Noble
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON

Men Truth Use
Blueness doth express trueness.
BEN JONSON

Color Trueness
Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
BEN JONSON

Boast Fall Pieces Wise
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh
A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.
BEN JONSON

Aspersion Choose Good Journey Men
Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.
BEN JONSON

Fruit Sweet Taken
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
BEN JONSON

Men Strange Wrecks
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.
BEN JONSON

Chair Light Queens Seated Sleep
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
BEN JONSON

Disease Talking

A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

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A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

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