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A good king is a public servant.

Ben Jonson

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
BEN JONSON

Dear Estimation Hypocrisy
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
BEN JONSON

Relax Reputation Ruins
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
BEN JONSON

Birthday Praying Return
Truth is man’s proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
BEN JONSON

Men Truth Use
I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
BEN JONSON

Compassion Justice Weakness
Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
BEN JONSON

Hate Hatred Ignorant
Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
BEN JONSON

Glasses Men Spring
No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.
BEN JONSON

Morning Regret Simple
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON

Funny Humor Ideas
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
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

Men Salt Way
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
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
BEN JONSON

Beast Fats Mischief
Silence in woman is like speech in man.
BEN JONSON

Men Silence Speech
I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
BEN JONSON

Answer Lines Mention Penend Player Writing

A good king is a public servant.

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A good king is a public servant.

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