One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
BEN JONSONWhom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
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Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
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Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
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Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
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Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us tow’rds the port May dash us on the shoals. The steersman’s part Is vigilance, or blow it rough or smooth.
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He threatens many that hath injured one.
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Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
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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 -
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON -
Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I’ll not look for wine.
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How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!
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As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
BEN JONSON -
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.
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 -
That I might live alone once with my gold! O, ’tis a sweet companion! kind and true: A man may trust it when his father cheats him, Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf! That which makes all men false, is true itself.
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We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
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Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
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I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
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The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.
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Prevent your day at morning.
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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 -
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
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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 -
O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
BEN JONSON -
Fortune, that favors fools.
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