Ben Jonson Quotes

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t'inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

Peace is never more than one thought away.

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.

Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.

Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.

Confound these ancestors... They've stolen our best ideas!

Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.

Reader look, not on his picture but his book.

Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.

God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man's dearer than to himself.

Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty.

Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.

Rich apparel has strange virtues; it makes him that hath it without means esteemed for an excellent wit; he that enjoys it with means puts the world in remembrance of his means.

Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.

The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.

There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.

Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

Though I am young, and cannot tell Either what Death or Love is well, Yet I have heard they both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts. And then again, I have been told Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold; So that I fear they do but bring Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. As in a ruin we it call One thing to be blown up, or fall; Or to our end like way may have By a flash of lightning, or a wave; So Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand; Except Love’s fires the virtue have To fight the frost out of the grave.

I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.

All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome

Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.

Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.

Prevent your day at morning.

I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation

They, who know no evil, will suspect none.

Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.

Calumnies are answered best with silence.

How near to good is what is fair!

Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need

Hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat.

Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.

A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.

Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.

Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.

He threatens many that hath injured one.

No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

A good poet's made as well as born.

Let those that merely talk and never think, That live in the wild anarchy of drink