[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSON[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.
BEN JONSONWeigh the meaning and look not at the words.
BEN JONSONThe pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
BEN JONSONThe poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
BEN JONSONAmbition, like a torrent, never looks back.
BEN JONSONWhosoever 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 JONSONTo struggle when hope is banished! To live when life’s salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that’s vanished- To endure, and go calmly on!
BEN JONSONCut Men’s throats with whisperings.
BEN JONSONGreatness 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 JONSONWhom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
BEN JONSONFor whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
BEN JONSONMinds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
BEN JONSONWell, 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 JONSONWere Guilt is, Rage and Courage doth abound.
BEN JONSONMany punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
BEN JONSONPoets are far rarer birds than kings.
BEN JONSON