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Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.

Ben Jonson

Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
BEN JONSON

Art Common Lying Security Sleep
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
BEN JONSON

Good Loss Men Rise
You are not now to think what’s best to do, As in beginnings, but what must be done, Being thus enter’d; and slip no advantage That may secure you. Let them call it mischief; When it is past, and prosper’d , ’twill be virtue.
BEN JONSON

Mischief Past Virtue
I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
BEN JONSON

False Giving News True
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh
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.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Conscience Law Rebel Self Soul
Blueness doth express trueness.
BEN JONSON

Color Trueness
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
BEN JONSON

Folly Impudence Rudeness
Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need
BEN JONSON

Ambition Needs Slave
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
BEN JONSON

Creeds Doctrine Good Waiting
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
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
BEN JONSON

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

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

Mind Punishment Vices
Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet’s horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.
BEN JONSON

Horse Plies Wine

Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.

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Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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