Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSONLanguage 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
BEN JONSON -
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
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 -
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
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 -
Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
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 -
Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
BEN JONSON -
Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.
BEN JONSON -
The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade.
BEN JONSON -
Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
BEN JONSON -
Fortune, that favors fools.
BEN JONSON







