Ben Jonson Quotes - Page 5

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.

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

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

Cut Men's throats with whisperings.

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

Silence in woman is like speech in man.

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

Blueness doth express trueness.

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

Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.

Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.

Soul of the age! The applause! delight! The wonder of our stage!

Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

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

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear.

Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.

I have no urns, no dusty monuments; No broken images of ancestors, Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales Of long descents, to boast false honors from.

Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.

Man and wife make one fool.

Your highest female grace is silence.

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.

Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.