Top 229 Quotes & Sayings by Ben Jonson
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English poet Ben Jonson.
Last updated on April 20, 2025.
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.
Talking is the disease of age.
Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
He threatens many that hath injured one.
They that know no evil will suspect none.
Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.
In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
Art hath an enemy called Ignorance.
A woman, the more curious she is about her face, is commonly the more careless about her house.
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
I do honour the very flea of his dog.
Apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet.
This is the very womb and bed of enormity.
Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick.
Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.
'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue.
Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity.
He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.
Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
Fortune, that favors fools.
Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need.
To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.
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.
O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
The way to rise is to obey and please.
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
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.
What excellent fools religion makes of men.
You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
Peace is never more than one thought away.
Calumnies are answered best with silence.
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.
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.
He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
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.
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
A good king is a public servant.
My thoughts and I were of another world.
The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.
Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.
They, who know no evil, will suspect none.
Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
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.
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.
To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
To struggle when hope is banished! To live when life's salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that's vanished- To endure, and go calmly on!
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