“There was never a great genius without a touch of madness.”
“Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose,
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver,
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breath, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night-
Goddess excellently bright.”
“Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy”
“Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson: With critical and explanatory notes and a memoir by William Gifford. Volume 2
“You may go in and search, sir. Here I find
The empty walls worse than I left 'em, smoked;
A few cracked pots and glasses, and a furnace;
The ceiling filled with poesies of the candle,
And madam with a dildo writ o' the walls.”
Source: The Alchemist
“Observe him, as his watch observes his clock, and true as turquoise in the dear lord's ring, looks well or ill with him.”
Source: Sejanus
“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.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson: With a Biographical Memoir
“Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“For he that once is good, is ever great.”
Source: Poetical Works of Ben Jonson. Edited by Robert Bell
“The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.”
Source: The works of Ben Jonson, with notes, and a biogr. memoir, by W. Gifford. With intr. and appendices by F. Cunningham
“Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?”
“Cut Men's throats with whisperings.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)
“Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true.”
“Sweet meat must have sour sauce.”
Source: Poetaster; or, His arraignm[e]nt. Sejanus his fall. Volpone; or, The fox. Epicoene; or, The silent woman
“To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering”
Source: Poetaster, Or, The Arraignment: Sejanus His Fall ; The Devil is an Ass ; The New Inn, Or, The Light Heart
“Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“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.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted.”
Source: Epicoene or The Silent Woman
“Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.”
Source: Ben Jonson
“A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)
“I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.”
“Nor for my peace will I go far, As wanderers do, that still do roam, But make my strengths, such as they are, Here in my bosom, and at home.”
“Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .”
Source: Every man in his humour. Every man out of his humour. Cynthia's revels; or, the fountain of self-love
“The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.”
Source: The Devil Is An Ass
“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 .”
Source: 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.”
“Freedom doth with degree dispense.”
“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.”
“Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.”
“If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“Success hath made me wanton.”
“[The play] is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English.”
“Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.”
“Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature's self.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir
“Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.”
Source: Poetical Works of Ben Jonson. Edited by Robert Bell
“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.”
Source: The Works of 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.”
Source: 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.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson
“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.”
Source: The Complete Plays: The alchemist. Catline, his conspiracy. Bartholomew Fair. The devil is an ass. The staple of news. The new inn; or, The light heart. The magnetic lady; or, Humours reconciled. A tale of a tub. The sad shepard; or, A tale of Robin Hood. The case is altered. Glossary
“Let argument bear no unmusical sound.”
Source: Poetical Works of Ben Jonson
“There is no bounty to be showed to such
As have real goodness: Bounty is
A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act
Can take effect on them that have no power
Of equal habitude to apprehend it?”
Source: Poetaster, Or, The Arraignment: Sejanus His Fall ; The Devil is an Ass ; The New Inn, Or, The Light Heart
“Prevent your day at morning.”
Source: The alchemist. Catiline. Bartholomew Fair
“Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.”
“True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)
“A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.”
Source: Poetaster
“Guilt's a terrible thing.”
Source: The Works of Ben Jonson...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir
“Hell itself must yield to industry.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)
