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Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

Ben Jonson

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
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
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
The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
BEN JONSON

Conceited Fools Rome Two
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
BEN JONSON

Beast Flattery Tyrant
I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
BEN JONSON

Men Popularity Slave
Hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat.
BEN JONSON

Care Cat Sorrow
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSON

Affliction Person Prayer Wicked
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
All concord’s born of contraries.
BEN JONSON

Born Contradiction Contrary
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
As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
BEN JONSON

Art Ask Matter Praise Style
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
BEN JONSON

Fortune Men
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
BEN JONSON

Gratitude Men Needs
Our whole life is like a play.
BEN JONSON

Life Play Whole
Who will not judge him worthy to be robbed That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shows the felon where his treasure lies?
BEN JONSON

Doors Judgment Lying Treasure
[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON

Conceited English Plain Play
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON

Sight Swans Sweet
Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.
BEN JONSON

Court Deny Mistress
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSON

Looks Meaning Weigh
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
BEN JONSON

Age Delight Soul Wonder
Let argument bear no unmusical sound.
BEN JONSON

Argument Bears Sound
Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
BEN JONSON

Faces Home House
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
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON

Beast Fats Mischief
Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.
BEN JONSON

Boys Mean Money
The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
BEN JONSON

Men Smoking

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

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Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

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