Ben Jonson Quotes
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A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a post out of the way.
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I loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.
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Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature's self.
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Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast.
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He hath consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, fight in his imagination.
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Reader, look, Not at his picture, but his book.
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Not to know vice at all, and keep true state, Is virtue, and not fate: Next to that virtue is to know vice well, And her black spite expel.
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Follow a shadow, it still flies you; Seem to fly it, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you.
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So breaks the sun earth's rugged chains, Wherein rude winter bound her veins; So grows both stream and source of price, That lately fettered were with ice. So naked trees get crispèd heads, And coloured coats the roughest meads, And all get vigour, youth and spright, That are but looked on by his light.
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Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbor give To more virtue than doth live.
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Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice — almighty gold.
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The Devil is an Ass! fool'd off! and beaten!
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It was a mighty while ago.
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For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee, I will not seek For names…
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Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd, Lady, it is to be presum'd, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. 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.
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Lady: How do's it fit? wilt come together? Prudence: Hardly. Lad: Thou must make shift with it. Pride feels no Pain.
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Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first.
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Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander makes it true.
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The burnt child dreads the fire.
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There's reason good, that you good laws should make: Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.
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A gentleman reading a poem that began withWhere is that man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen?Jonson calling his cook, asked if he had ever heard of her, who answering 'No,' demonstrate to him Lo, there the man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen.
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His opinion of verses. That he wrote all his first in prose, for so his master Camden had learned him.That verses stood by sense without either colours or accent; which yet other times he denied.
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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.
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He cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to sonnets, which he said were like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short were racked, others too long cut short.