Ben Jonson quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Ben Jonson on Wise Famous Quotes.

Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.

I do honour the very flea of his dog.

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?

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.

The best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.

Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.

Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.

Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.

To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.

Cut Men's throats with whisperings.

Freedom doth with degree dispense.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;
But at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met.

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

Apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet.

Man and wife make one fool.

Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee

Success hath made me wanton.

Riches are in fortune A greater good than wisdom is in nature.

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

In the hope to meet
Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

This is the very womb and bed of enormity.

Reader look, not on his picture but his book.

True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.

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

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

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

What excellent fools religion makes of men.

To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

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

Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .

It is a note
Of upstart greatness to observe and watch
For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
Neglects and scorns.

Fortune, that favors fools.

The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.

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

Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.

Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

Art hath an enemy called Ignorance.

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

Talking is the disease of age.

Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue.

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

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

Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.

I am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honor and reputation.

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

Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.

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

How ready is heaven to those that pray!

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear.

When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

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

He wil sooner lose his best friend, then his least jest.

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

He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.

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

Hell itself must yield to industry.

There was never a great genius without a touch of madness.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.

Tell troth and shame the devil.

'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.

All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.

Nothing is more short-lived than pride.

Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.

I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.

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

The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.

He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

A good life is a main argument.

A good king is a public servant.

They that know no evil will suspect none.

Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.

Calumnies are answered best with silence.

I do honor the very flea of his dog.

Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.

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

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

Silence in woman is like speech in man.

To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

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

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.

Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.

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

Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.

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

Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.

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

Your highest female grace is silence.

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

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

One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering

The burnt child dreads the fire.

Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.

A good poet's made as well as born.