Ben Jonson - Art Quotes

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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.

Ben Jonson
It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.

Ben Jonson
Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd,
Lady, it is to be presum'd,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

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

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
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed,
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

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
Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging…Shakespeare wanted art.

Ben Jonson
Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show
Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row
Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold;
Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told,
Or stair, or courts; but standst an ancient pile,
And these grudged at, art reverenced the while.

Ben Jonson
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.

Ben Jonson
As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.

Ben Jonson
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.

Ben Jonson
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.

Ben Jonson