Ben Jonson - True Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

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True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.

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

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

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

Ben Jonson
Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue, and not fate:
Next to that virtue is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel.

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

Ben Jonson
Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
That expresseth but by fits,
True conceit,
Spoiling senses of their treasure,
Cozening judgement with a measure,
But false weight.
Wresting words from their true calling;
Propping verse, for fear of falling
To the ground.
Jointing syllables, drowning letters,
Fastening vowels, as with fetters
They were bound!

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

Ben Jonson