It is a note Of upstart greatness to observe and watch For these poor trifles, which the noble mind Neglects and scorns.
BEN JONSONYou 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.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
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How near to good is what is fair!
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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.
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Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
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A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
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They, who know no evil, will suspect none.
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Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
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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.
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Calumnies are answered best with silence.
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Drink today, and drown all sorrow; You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow; Best, while you have it, use your breath; There is no drinking after death.
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Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.
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No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
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Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
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Rich apparel has strange virtues; it makes him that hath it without means esteemed for an excellent wit; he that enjoys it with means puts the world in remembrance of his means.
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Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
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The burnt child dreads the fire.
BEN JONSON






