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To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.

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

Benefits Done Men
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
BEN JONSON

Heaven Prayer Praying
I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
BEN JONSON

False Giving News True
To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
BEN JONSON

Communication Motivational Wise
Blueness doth express trueness.
BEN JONSON

Color Trueness
Tell troth and shame the devil.
BEN JONSON

Devil Shame Truth
Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a science he formed still one Art.
BEN JONSON

Art Judging Men
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

Act Apes Courage Eye Mirror Time
Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.
BEN JONSON

Fruit Sweet Taken
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
BEN JONSON

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

Praise Strikes Strokes
Peace is never more than one thought away.
BEN JONSON

Away Harmony More Peace
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
BEN JONSON

Little Wise World
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
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
Princes that would their people should do well Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their limitations, and regard of laws: A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.
BEN JONSON

Example Law Men Patteren People
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

Art Causes Drest Near Sweet
True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.
BEN JONSON

Fine Melancholy Perfect Wit
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
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
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.
BEN JONSON

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

Forget Sun Time
Where it concerns himself, Who’s angry at a slander, makes it true.
BEN JONSON

Angry Concern Slander
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
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
Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.
BEN JONSON

Anxiety Care Possession

To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.

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Popular Authors

To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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