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 JONSONGod wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man’s dearer than to himself.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
-
-
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
BEN JONSON -
Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth, and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always one and the same habit.
BEN JONSON -
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
BEN JONSON -
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
BEN JONSON -
To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.
BEN JONSON -
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON -
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON -
Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.
BEN JONSON -
They, who know no evil, will suspect none.
BEN JONSON -
That old bald cheater, Time.
BEN JONSON -
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
BEN JONSON