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Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

Ben Jonson

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
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.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Conscience Law Rebel Self Soul
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
BEN JONSON

Enemy Grief Men
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
BEN JONSON

Folly Impudence Rudeness
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
BEN JONSON

Friendship Happiness Positive
Silence in woman is like speech in man.
BEN JONSON

Men Silence Speech
Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance .
BEN JONSON

Art Enemy Ignorance
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
Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
BEN JONSON

Art Common Lying Security Sleep
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
Our whole life is like a play.
BEN JONSON

Life Play Whole
What excellent fools religion makes of men.
BEN JONSON

Men Religion Religious
Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
BEN JONSON

Hate Hatred Ignorant
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright.
BEN JONSON

Chair Light Queens Seated Sleep
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
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.
BEN JONSON

Exercise Men Writing
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
BEN JONSON

Illness Neurosis Sick
Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.
BEN JONSON

Father Greatness Son
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
Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSON

Anarchy Drinking Thinking
We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
BEN JONSON

Fashion Quality Women
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.
BEN JONSON

Lines Sweat Writing
Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
BEN JONSON

Faces Home House
Calumnies are answered best with silence.
BEN JONSON

Advice Silence
A good poet’s made as well as born.
BEN JONSON

Born Made Poet
It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
BEN JONSON

Ears Speak Understanding
He was not of an age, but for all time!
BEN JONSON

Age Time

Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

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Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

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