Ben Jonson Quotes
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Come my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love; Time will not be ours forever, 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.
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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.
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A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a post out of the way.
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Thus, in his belly, can he change a sin, Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.
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The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And, though the sound were parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
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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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Truth is the trial of itself And needs no other touch, And purer than the purest gold, Refine it ne'er so much.
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I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy.
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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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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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Reader, look, Not at his picture, but his book.
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In the meantime, to all suits, to all entreaties, to all letters, to all tricks, I will be deaf as an adder, blind as a beetle, lay mine ear to the ground, and lock mine eyes i' my hand against all temptations.
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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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The world knows only two, - that's Rome and I.
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The burnt child dreads the fire.
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Rhyme, the rack of finest wits, That expresseth but by fits, True conceit, Spoiling senses of their treasure, Cozening judgement with a measure, But false weight. Wresting words from their true calling; Propping verse, for fear of falling To the ground. Jointing syllables, drowning letters, Fastening vowels, as with fetters They were bound!
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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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Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice — almighty gold.
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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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Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander makes it true.
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Calumnies are answered best with silence.
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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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I never thought an angry person valiant:Virtue is never aided by a vice.