Top 229 Quotes & Sayings by Ben Jonson - Page 4

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.

Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats, or winds that they be favoring and fill our sails, or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us; but they know it not.

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.

Freedom doth with degree dispense.

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

True melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit.

You are not now to think what's best to do, As in beginnings, but what must be done, Being thus enter'd; and slip no advantage That may secure you. Let them call it mischief; When it is past, and prosper'd , 'twill be virtue.

Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare , rise; I will not lodge thee by Chaucer or Spenser , or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room; Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read , and praise to give .

[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

Reader look, not on his picture but his book.

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

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.

A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.

The burnt child dreads the fire.

Success hath made me wanton.

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

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

Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.

No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.

Cut Men's throats with whisperings.

Hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat.

I'll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

Tell troth and shame the devil.

If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.

Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.

Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true.

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.

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

All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome

Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.

Blueness doth express trueness.

The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.

Guilt's a terrible thing.

The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.

Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.

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.

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

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

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

The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.

And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.

If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick

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

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

Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.

Prevent your day at morning.

Were Guilt is, Rage and Courage doth abound.