Ben Jonson Quotes

174 Sourced Quotes

Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.

Ben Jonson
Those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.

Ben Jonson
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame, a flatterer.

Ben Jonson
Yet must I not give nature all: thy art,
My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion. And that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine arc) and strike the second heat
Upon the muses anvil; turn the fame,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou. Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned, and true filed lines:
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

Ben Jonson
Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth, and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always one and the same habit.

Ben Jonson
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.

Ben Jonson
A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

Ben Jonson
You that would last long, list to my song,
Make no more coil, but buy of this oil.
Would you be ever fair and young?
Stout of teeth and strong of tongue?
Tart of palate, quick of ear?
Sharp of sight, of nostril clear?
Moist of hand and light of foot?
(Or, I will come nearer to it)
Would you live free from all diseases,
Do the act your mistress pleases;
Yet fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a medicine for the nones.

Ben Jonson
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

Ben Jonson
I loved the man [Shakespeare] and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.

Ben Jonson
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.

Ben Jonson
Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.

Ben Jonson
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.

Ben Jonson
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.

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

Ben Jonson
Let me alone to observe, till I turne my selfe into nothing but observation.

Ben Jonson
If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being a good poet without first being a good man.

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

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

Ben Jonson
True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.

Ben Jonson
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.

Ben Jonson
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

Ben Jonson
Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.

Ben Jonson
Though the most be players, some must be spectators.

Ben Jonson
The best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.

Ben Jonson