Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink
BEN JONSONIt is a note Of upstart greatness to observe and watch For these poor trifles, which the noble mind Neglects and scorns.
More Ben Jonson Quotes
-
-
O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
BEN JONSON -
Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast, Still to be powder’d, all perfum’d. Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.
BEN JONSON -
Our whole life is like a play.
BEN JONSON -
You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
BEN JONSON -
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
BEN JONSON -
The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
BEN JONSON -
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
BEN JONSON -
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSON -
I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.
BEN JONSON -
He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.
BEN JONSON -
Confound these ancestors… They’ve stolen our best ideas!
BEN JONSON -
Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?
BEN JONSON -
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
BEN JONSON -
Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
BEN JONSON -
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
BEN JONSON -
I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
BEN JONSON -
He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
BEN JONSON -
It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could’st make the time to do so too; I’ll wind thee up no more.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time’s deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
BEN JONSON -
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 -
Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them.
BEN JONSON -
Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
BEN JONSON