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No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.

Ben Jonson

True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
BEN JONSON

Joy Speak Tongue
To 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 JONSON

Dream Life Struggle Vanish
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
BEN JONSON

Relax Reputation Ruins
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
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
BEN JONSON

Good Ready Writing
A good king is a public servant.
BEN JONSON

Good King Kings Servant
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
A good life is a main argument.
BEN JONSON

Argument Good Inspirational Life
If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
BEN JONSON

Art Being Poverty True
Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Conscience Law Rebel Self Soul
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
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
BEN JONSON

Good Loss Men Rise
Sweet meat must have sour sauce.
BEN JONSON

Meat Swans Sweet
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
It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
BEN JONSON

Done Noble Person Wrong

No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.

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No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.

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Popular Authors

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