I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
BEN JONSONHow ready is heaven to those that pray!
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
BEN JONSON -
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON -
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 -
A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
BEN JONSON -
Nor 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 JONSON -
No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.
BEN JONSON -
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON -
A good king is a public servant.
BEN JONSON -
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
BEN JONSON -
I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
BEN JONSON -
Rich apparel has strange virtues; it makes him that hath it without means esteemed for an excellent wit; he that enjoys it with means puts the world in remembrance of his means.
BEN JONSON -
It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
BEN JONSON -
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
BEN JONSON -
He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
BEN JONSON -
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
BEN JONSON -
Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
BEN JONSON -
The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
BEN JONSON -
I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
BEN JONSON -
If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.
BEN JONSON -
Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
BEN JONSON -
It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
BEN JONSON -
We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
BEN JONSON -
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