Ben Jonson Quotes The Great Author of The Alchemist, Ben Jonson Quotes and sayings for people who love literature, playwright and Lyric Poetry.
Who Was Ben Jonson?
Ben Jonson or also known as Benjamin Jonson was born on June 11, 1572 in London England. He died on August 6, 1637 London.
He was a great English Stuart Dramatist, a lyric poet, and a literary critic too. He is usually known as the second best and important English Dramatist after William Shakespeare during the rule of James I.
Every Man in His Humour, Volpone , Epicoene: or The Silent Woman, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair are some of his Major comedy Plays.
Ben Jonson took birth after two months of his father’s loss. He had stepfather too, a bricklayer, but luckily he was fortunate to go to Westminster School.
He ended his fromal education quite early, and followed his stepfathers profession in the beginning, he also fought with some success with the English forces in Netherlands.
After his return to England he became and actor and a playwright, he’s known to play the role of Hieronimo in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.
Drink to me only with Thine eyes
“Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” is a famous old song, the lyrics of which are the song “To Celia” by the London playwright Ben Jonson, first published in 1616.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I’ll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent it back to me;
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.
After this song had been popular for almost two centuries and has remained alive and popular for over three hundred years now, and it is safe to say that no other work by Jonson is so well known.
Related: Lao Tzu Quotes
Quotes Ben Jonson | Ben Jonson Quotes
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.
Ben Jonson Quotes
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
Ben Jonson Quotes
They say Princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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Ben Jonson
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
Ben Jonson Quotes
To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t’will be virtue
Ben Jonson Quotes
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 Quotes
Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity.
Ben Jonson Quotes
They that know no evil will suspect none.
Ben Jonson Quotes
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
Ben Jonson Quotes
A woman, the more curious she is about her face, is commonly the more careless about her house.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
Ben Jonson Quotes
This is the very womb and bed of enormity.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Ben Jonson Quotes
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
Ben Jonson Quotes
And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Honor’s a good brooch to wear in a man’s hat at all times.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
Ben Jonson Quotes
‘Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
Ben Jonson Quotes
O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
Ben Jonson Quotes
I do honour the very flea of his dog.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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Peace is never more than one thought away.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Wherein the graver had a strife / With Nature to out-do the life.
Ben Jonson Quotes
A good dog deserves a good bone.
Ben Jonson Quotes
True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.
Ben Jonson Quotes
… the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.
Ben Jonson Quotes
It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Your highest female grace is silence.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
Ben Jonson Quotes
No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Where guilty is, rage and courage doth abound.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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Tis not the wholesome sharp mortality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen.
Ben Jonson Quotes
The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade.
Ben Jonson Quotes
He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.
Ben Jonson Quotes
No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.
Ben Jonson Quotes
It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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 Quotes
The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
Ben Jonson Quotes
A good poet’s made as well as born.
Ben Jonson Quotes
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A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .
Ben Jonson Quotes
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
Ben Jonson Quotes
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
Ben Jonson Quotes
The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting
Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Quotes ben jonson
Art hath an enemy call’d ignorance
Quotes ben jonson
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
Quotes ben jonson
The burnt child dreads the fire.
Quotes ben jonson
I am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honor and reputation.
Quotes ben jonson
All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
Quotes ben jonson
Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.
Quotes ben jonson
Man and wife make one fool.
Quotes ben jonson
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
Quotes ben jonson
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
Quotes ben jonson
You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
Quotes ben jonson
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright.
Quotes ben jonson
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
Quotes ben jonson
Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
Quotes ben jonson
Let them call it mischief; when it is past and prospered, it will be virtue.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
Quotes ben jonson
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
Quotes ben jonson
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
Quotes ben jonson
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
Quotes ben jonson
I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
Quotes ben jonson
Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them
Quotes ben jonson
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
Quotes ben jonson
The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
Quotes ben jonson
Blueness doth express trueness.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.
Quotes ben jonson
Minds that are great and free, should not on fortune pause: ‘Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.
Quotes ben jonson
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
Quotes ben jonson
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
Quotes ben jonson
The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
Quotes ben jonson
Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
Quotes ben jonson
Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
Quotes ben jonson
Our whole life is like a play.
Quotes ben jonson
In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
Quotes ben jonson
That old bald cheater, Time.
Quotes ben jonson
Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time’s deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
Quotes ben jonson
Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts in vain: Suns that set may rise again; But if once we lose this light, ‘Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys.
Quotes ben jonson
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
Quotes ben jonson
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
Quotes ben jonson
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
I’ll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
Tell troth and shame the devil.
Quotes ben jonson
Hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat.
Quotes ben jonson
And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow’d them with her odorous foot.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
Quotes ben jonson
I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.
Quotes ben jonson
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
Quotes ben jonson
He that departs with his own honesty For Vulgar , doth it too dearly buy.
Quotes ben jonson
The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
Quotes ben jonson
Hell itself must yield to industry.
Quotes ben jonson
Poets are far rarer birds than kings.
Quotes ben jonson
A good king is a public servant.
Quotes ben jonson
Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
Quotes ben jonson
Nothing is more short-lived than pride.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.
Quotes ben jonson
Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
Quotes ben jonson
Let argument bear no unmusical sound.
Quotes ben jonson
Prevent your day at morning.
Quotes ben jonson
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.
Quotes ben jonson
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.
Quotes ben jonson
Ben Johnson poet | Ben Jonson Poet
Drink today, and drown all sorrow;
Ben Jonson Poet
You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow;
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death.
True happiness
Ben Jonson Poet
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.
There was never a great genius without a touch of madness.
Ben Jonson Poet
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Ben Jonson Poet
He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.
Ben Jonson Poet
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
Ben Jonson Poet
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
Ben Jonson Poet
He was not of an age, but for all time!
Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.
Ben Jonson Poet
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times
Ben Jonson Poet
For this I find, where jealousy is fed,
Ben Jonson Poet
Horns in the mind are worse than on the head.
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Ben Jonson Poet
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.
Though I am young, and cannot tell
Ben Jonson Poet
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.
Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
Ben Jonson Poet
He will sooner lose his best friend, then his least jest.
Ben Jonson Poet
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries—to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.
Ben Jonson Poet
Many might go to heaven with half the labor they go to hell.
Ben Jonson Poet
Riches, the dumb god that giv’st all men tongues, / That canst do nought, and yet mak’st men do all things; / The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, / Is made worth heaven!
Ben Jonson Poet
No, I do know that I was born
Ben Jonson Poet
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief:
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam;
But make my strengths, such as they are,
Here in my bosom, and at home.
Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!
Ben Jonson Poet
To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson Poet
A lily of a day
Ben Johnson Poet
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
AMBITION MAKES MORE TRUSTY SLAVES THAN NEED
Ben Johnson Poet
Riches are in fortune A greater good than wisdom is in nature.
Ben Johnson Poet
Do not I know if women have a will
Ben Johnson Poet
They’ll do ‘gainst all the watches o’the world?
Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money; for these may be recovered by industry: but to be a fool born is a disease incurable.
Ben Johnson Poet
SIR P: Sir, calumnies are answer’d best with silence.
Ben Johnson Poet
But soft: I hear
Ben Johnson Poet
Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries, we dream, and swears there’s no such thing…
De te ții după umbră, fuge de tine; Fugi de ea, și te va urma.
Ben Johnson Poet
If you follow the shadow, flee from you; Run from her, and she will follow you.
Ben Johnson Poet
PEREGRINE
Ben Johnson Poet
It seems, Sir, you know all.
POLITICK WOULD-BE
Ben Johnson Poet
Not all, Sir: but
I have some general notions. I do love
To note, and to observe: though I live out
From the active torrent: yet I’ll mark
The currents and the passages of things
For mine own private use.
Hood an ass with reverend purple,
Ben Johnson Poet
…
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor
Observe him, as his watch observes his clock, and true as turquoise in the dear lord’s ring, looks well or ill with him.
Ben Johnson Poet
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
Ben Johnson Poet
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy
drink to the cause, and pure vapours
Ben Johnson Poet
CORV: Honour! tut, a breath: There’s no such thing, in nature: a mere term Invented to awe fools.
Ben Johnson Poet
Well, I have for me that, if jealousy is fed, the horns of the mind are worse than those that peek through the hair
Ben Johnson Poet
Quotes about wit
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
Quotes about wit
He that would pun would pink a pocket.
Quotes about wit
Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.
Quotes about wit
As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.
Quotes about wit
Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. Dorothy Parker Wit is a treacherous dart. It is perhaps the only weapon with which it is possible to stab oneself in one’s own back.
Quotes about wit
Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.
Quotes about wit
Quotes taken from Forbes
The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.
Quotes about wit – Avicenna
A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Quotes about wit – Joseph Roux
A proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one.
Quotes about wit – Lord John Russell
I appreciate simplicity, true beauty that lasts over time, and a little wit and eclecticism that make life more fun.
Quotes about wit – Elliott Erwitt
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Quotes about wit – William Shakespeare
I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
Quotes about wit – John Oliver
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
Quotes about wit – William Hazlitt
At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
Quotes about wit – Benjamin Franklin
If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
Quotes about wit – Francis Bacon
Humor is the truth; wit is an exaggeration of the truth.
Quotes about wit – Stan Laurel
Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit.
Quotes about wit – Margaret Cavendish
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. Somerset Maugham
Quotes about wit – W. Somerset Maugham
In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.
Quotes about wit – Virgil Thomson
Wit is educated insolence.
Quotes about wit – Aristotle
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
Quotes about wit – W. Somerset Maugham
There’s many a man has more hair than wit.
Quotes about wit – William Shakespeare
Wit is an explosion of the compound spirit. Karl Wilhelm Friedrich
Quotes about wit – Schlegel