Ben Jonson - Man Quotes

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Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks...

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

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
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man's dearer than to himself.

Ben Jonson
For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

Ben Jonson
That I might live alone once with my gold!
O, 'tis a sweet companion! kind and true:
A man may trust it when his father cheats him,
Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf!
That which makes all men false, is true itself.

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

Ben Jonson
A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.

Ben Jonson
No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

Ben Jonson
It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.

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
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.

Ben Jonson
The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade.

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

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

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
Speech is the only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other creatures.

Ben Jonson
Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

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

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

Ben Jonson
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log, dry, bald and sere:
A lily of a day,
Is fairer far, in May,
Although it fall, and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson