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Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

Ben Jonson

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

Men Truth Use
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.
BEN JONSON

Art Causes Drest Near Sweet
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh
Hell itself must yield to industry.
BEN JONSON

Hell Industry Yield
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.
BEN JONSON

Another Grief Prayer Weariness Wish Wound
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON

Discourse Harsh Speech
To struggle when hope is banished! To live when life’s salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that’s vanished- To endure, and go calmly on!
BEN JONSON

Dream Life Struggle Vanish
Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSON

Anarchy Drinking Thinking
Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
BEN JONSON

Glasses Men Spring
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
BEN JONSON

Little Wise World
Poets are far rarer birds than kings.
BEN JONSON

Bird Kings Poet
One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
BEN JONSON

Character Trouble Women
Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
BEN JONSON

Praise Strikes Strokes
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON

Beast Fats Mischief
Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
BEN JONSON

Age Example Fallen Good Youth
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
BEN JONSON

Sounded Swelling Use Words

Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

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Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

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Popular Authors

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