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Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

Ben Jonson

Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.
BEN JONSON

Cup Drinking Men
Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
BEN JONSON

Envy Honor Two
Sweet meat must have sour sauce.
BEN JONSON

Meat Swans Sweet
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
BEN JONSON

Disease Talking
Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a science he formed still one Art.
BEN JONSON

Art Judging Men
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

Home Stills Wanderers
A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t’ his other virtues, They’re all unseason’d without it.
BEN JONSON

Men Salt Way
I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
BEN JONSON

Answer Lines Mention Penend Player Writing
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
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.
BEN JONSON

Blow Slumber Wind
It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
BEN JONSON

Done Noble Person Wrong
Poets are far rarer birds than kings.
BEN JONSON

Bird Kings Poet
The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.
BEN JONSON

Infinite Men Soul
To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.
BEN JONSON

Long Pleasure Treasure
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
BEN JONSON

Applause Crowns Mind Virtue
True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.
BEN JONSON

Fine Melancholy Perfect Wit
Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty.
BEN JONSON

Law Men Mind Order Sense
I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.
BEN JONSON

Ignorance Men Science
There is no bounty to be showed to such As have real goodness: Bounty is A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act Can take effect on them that have no power Of equal habitude to apprehend it?
BEN JONSON

Real Spices Virtue
It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
BEN JONSON

Art Giving Lying
The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
BEN JONSON

Men Smoking
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.
BEN JONSON

Courage Suffering Valor
Man and wife make one fool.
BEN JONSON

Marriage Men Wife
Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.
BEN JONSON

Cigarette Smoke Men Smoking
The burnt child dreads the fire.
BEN JONSON

Children Dread Fire

Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

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Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

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Popular Authors

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