Ben Jonson Quotes

Our whole life is like a play.

How ready is heaven to those that pray!

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

Guilt's a terrible thing.

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.

Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.

Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.

Who will not judge him worthy to be robbed That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shows the felon where his treasure lies?

Silence in woman is like speech in man.

A good life is a main argument.

He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.

Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.

The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.

Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

Man and wife make one fool.

Were Guilt is, Rage and Courage doth abound.

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

Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: 'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.

I do honor the very flea of his dog.

The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.

Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.

Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.

I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

Hell itself must yield to industry.

Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.

Drink today, and drown all sorrow; You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow; Best, while you have it, use your breath; There is no drinking after death.

And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

My thoughts and I were of another world.

You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.

It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.

O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!

Blueness doth express trueness.

Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.

I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.

I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.

If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.

What excellent fools religion makes of men.

The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.

Tell troth and shame the devil.

I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.

All concord's born of contraries.

In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.