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Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

Ben Jonson

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

Ears Speak Understanding
One woman reads another’s character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
BEN JONSON

Character Trouble Women
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.
BEN JONSON

Good Man Men Office
Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
BEN JONSON

Art Eye Neglect Simplicity Sweet
Prevent your day at morning.
BEN JONSON

Day Morning Prevent
Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
BEN JONSON

Boast Fall Pieces Wise
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
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON

Men Truth Use
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
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
BEN JONSON

Affliction Person Prayer Wicked
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

Ancient Heaven Silent
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
O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
BEN JONSON

Forget Sun Time
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
BEN JONSON

Applause Crowns Mind Virtue
Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
BEN JONSON

Faces Home House

Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

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Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

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