Ben Jonson Quotes

174 Sourced Quotes

I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind.

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

Ben Jonson
Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.

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

Ben Jonson
Courses even with the sun
Doth her mighty brother run.

Ben Jonson
If he were
To be made honest by an act of parliament
I should not alter in my faith of him.

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

Ben Jonson
As the multitude call timber-trees, promiscuously growing, a wood or forest; so am I bold to entitle these lesser poems, of later growth, by this of Underwood, out of the analogy they hold to the Forest in my former book.

Ben Jonson
He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.

Ben Jonson
A gentleman reading a poem that began with Where 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.

Ben Jonson
A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t' his other virtues, They're all unseason'd without it.

Ben Jonson
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.

Ben Jonson
The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:
Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
How willful blind is he then, that would stray,
And hath it in his powers, to make his way!
This world death's region is, the other life's:
And here, it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it.
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

Ben Jonson
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy!
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry:
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

Ben Jonson
I do utter as good things every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of 'em.

Ben Jonson
Princes that would their people should do well
Must at themselves begin, as at the head;
For men, by their example, pattern out
Their limitations, and regard of laws:
A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.

Ben Jonson
Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps, doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth,
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

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

Ben Jonson
In the hope to meet
Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

Ben Jonson
A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.

Ben Jonson
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names…

Ben Jonson
People: The Voice of Cato is the voice of Rome.
Cato: The voice of Rome is the consent of heaven!

Ben Jonson
Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James.
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volumes light.

Ben Jonson
The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.
Of Francis Bacon

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

Ben Jonson