Top 100 Jonson Quotes
#1. Jonson wrote a poem and called his son
His best piece of poetrie
A lovely line a little loathsome
I loved that poem once
He said we are lent our sons never take
Too much pleasure in what you love
Edward Hirsch
#2. Just like a butterfly, I had sprung from my cocoon for the first time. For my risk, I was rewarded with Jacob Bennett." - Laylla Jonson (Beneath the Blossom Tree)
L.B. Malpass
#3. Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets;Jonson was theVirgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
John Dryden
#4. Gascoigne, Ben Jonson, Greville, Raleigh, Donne,
Poets who wrote great poems, one by one,
And spaced by many years, each line an act
Through which few labor, which no men retract.
This passion is the scholar's heritage
Yvor Winters
#5. There is a very simple reason why Lion El'Jonson did not take part in the final battles of the Horus Heresy. It is beautifully simple, when you consider it. He was waiting.'
'Waiting for what?' Boreas asked quietly.
'He was waiting to see which side won, of course.
Gav Thorpe
#6. Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.
John Milton
#7. Like every great writer before or since, Jonson understood that the best poets 'are both made and born'. That all great writing has to be hammered out and all great poets stand or fall by that 'second heat', their laboured revision.
James Shapiro
#8. I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric ...
John Dryden
#9. The more I learn about life and people, the more I realise that everyone has a story and everyone's story is the biggest in their own mind." - Laylla Jonson
L.B. Malpass
#10. She is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary happy wit, and tongue. Ben Jonson, Epicoene, or The Silent Woman
Robert Galbraith
#11. Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
Ben Jonson
#12. Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.
Ben Jonson
#13. To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.
Ben Jonson
#14. 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
#15. 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
#16. Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
Ben Jonson
#17. Many might go to heaven with half the labor they go to hell.
Ben Jonson
#18. 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
#19. 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
#20. And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.
Ben Jonson
#21. 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
#22. Where guilty is, rage and courage doth abound.
Ben Jonson
#23. The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
Ben Jonson
#24. The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.
Ben Jonson
#25. For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.
Ben Jonson
#29. Calumnies are answered best with silence.
Ben Jonson
#30. One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
Ben Jonson
#31. Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.
Ben Jonson
#32. I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
Ben Jonson
#33. Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;
But at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met.
Ben Jonson
#34. He threatens many that hath injured one.
Ben Jonson
#35. Who will not judge him worthy to be robbed That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shows the felon where his treasure lies?
Ben Jonson
#36. The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air; And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
Ben Jonson
#37. Nothing is more short-lived than pride.
Ben Jonson
#38. It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could'st make the time to do so too; I'll wind thee up no more.
Ben Jonson
#39. I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
Ben Jonson
#40. The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
Ben Jonson
#41. 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
#42. There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
Ben Jonson
#44. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Ben Jonson
#45. Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
Ben Jonson
#46. What excellent fools religion makes of men.
Ben Jonson
#47. Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine.
Ben Jonson
#48. Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .
Ben Jonson
#49. Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee
Ben Jonson
#50. It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.
Ben Jonson
#51. It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
Ben Jonson
#52. 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
#53. The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.
Ben Jonson
#54. True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.
Ben Jonson
#55. I do honour the very flea of his dog.
Ben Jonson
#56. 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
#57. To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson
#58. It is a note
Of upstart greatness to observe and watch
For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
Neglects and scorns.
Ben Jonson
#59. 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
#60. It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.
Ben Jonson
#61. Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
Ben Jonson
#62. If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.
Ben Jonson
#63. Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
Ben Jonson
#64. My thoughts and I were of another world.
Ben Jonson
#65. Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
Ben Jonson
#66. Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue.
Ben Jonson
#67. I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
Ben Jonson
#68. 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
#69. Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.
Ben Jonson
#70. When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.
Ben Jonson
#71. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.
Ben Jonson
#72. Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
Ben Jonson
#73. The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
Ben Jonson
#74. The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
Ben Jonson
#75. We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
Ben Jonson
#76. 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
#77. I do honor the very flea of his dog.
Ben Jonson
#78. Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, ... with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
Ben Jonson
#79. If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
Ben Jonson
#80. I have no urns, no dusty monuments;
No broken images of ancestors,
Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tales
Of long descents, to boast false honors from.
Ben Jonson
#81. I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
Ben Jonson
#82. He wil sooner lose his best friend, then his least jest.
Ben Jonson
#83. A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.
Ben Jonson
#85. In the hope to meet
Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.
Ben Jonson
#86. Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.
Ben Jonson
#87. I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Upon my flesh t'inflict another wound.
Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death
With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of thee.
Ben Jonson
#88. Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
Ben Jonson
#89. CORV: Honour! tut, a breath: There's no such thing, in nature: a mere term Invented to awe fools.
Ben Jonson
#90. Silence in woman is like speech in man.
Ben Jonson
#91. To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.
Ben Jonson
#92. Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.
Ben Jonson
#93. 'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.
Ben Jonson
#94. Force works on servile natures, not the free.
Ben Jonson
#95. The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.
Ben Jonson
#96. You learn nothing about someone by the way they win the fight, you learn everything about the way they lose and keep coming back.
Ben Jonson
#97. Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.
Ben Jonson
#98. 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
#99. Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.
Ben Jonson
#100. AMBITION MAKES MORE TRUSTY SLAVES THAN NEED
Ben Jonson
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