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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

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
BEN JONSON

Communication Motivational Wise
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON

Conceited English Plain Play
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
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
BEN JONSON

Evil Hate Men Oppress
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
BEN JONSON

Age Delight Soul Wonder
… the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.
BEN JONSON

Anchors Needs Sea
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
BEN JONSON

Affected Eloquence Foolish
The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
BEN JONSON

Dignity Life Losing
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
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
Cut Men’s throats with whisperings.
BEN JONSON

Cutting Men Whispering
Honor’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times.
BEN JONSON

Hate Honor Men Time
Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
BEN JONSON

Frail Memories Mind
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
BEN JONSON

Good Man Heaven Men
In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
BEN JONSON

Absence Hope Love Miss Sweet
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
BEN JONSON

Passion Spiritual Understanding
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
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
I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.
BEN JONSON

Broken Honor Long
A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
BEN JONSON

Black Brain House
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.
BEN JONSON

Alone Brother Companions Money Sweet
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
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
Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
BEN JONSON

Disease Mean Music
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
BEN JONSON

Imperfect Light Opinion Things
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

Crafts Scratches Succeed
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

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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