Ben Jonson Quotes

That I might live alone once with my gold! O, ’tis a sweet companion! kind and true: A man may trust it when his father cheats him, Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf! That which makes all men false, is true itself.
BEN JONSON

Alone Brother Companions Money Sweet
Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
BEN JONSON

Beer Drink Wells
What excellent fools religion makes of men.
BEN JONSON

Men Religion Religious
Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I’ll not look for wine.
BEN JONSON

Food Romantic Wine
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
BEN JONSON

Art Men Monsters
Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
BEN JONSON

May Poetry War
Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
BEN JONSON

Death Good Man Men
Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
BEN JONSON

Age Example Fallen Good Youth
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
BEN JONSON

Discourse Harsh Speech
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
BEN JONSON

Good Loss Men Rise
Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
BEN JONSON

Faces Home House
For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.
BEN JONSON

Intermission Newest Present Themselves
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
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.
BEN JONSON

Sight Swans Sweet
As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
BEN JONSON

Art Ask Matter Praise Style
Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
BEN JONSON

Heart Hypocrisy Spread
Prevent your day at morning.
BEN JONSON

Day Morning Prevent
Calumnies are answered best with silence.
BEN JONSON

Advice Silence
Man and wife make one fool.
BEN JONSON

Marriage Men Wife
Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
BEN JONSON

Frail Memories Mind
A good life is a main argument.
BEN JONSON

Argument Good Inspirational Life
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
BEN JONSON

Disease Talking
Whosoever 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 JONSON

Ancient Heaven Silent
Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
BEN JONSON

Half Heaven Venture
All concord’s born of contraries.
BEN JONSON

Born Contradiction Contrary
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
BEN JONSON

Applause Crowns Mind Virtue
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
BEN JONSON

Ambition Inspiration Looks

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