Top 160 Ben Jonson Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.”

— Ben Jonson

53. “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?”

— Ben Jonson

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

— Ben Jonson

55. “Man and wife make one fool.”

— Ben Jonson

56. “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

57. “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

58. “Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time’s deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.”

— Ben Jonson

59. “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

60. “Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.”

— Ben Jonson

61. “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

62. “They that know no evil will suspect none.”

— Ben Jonson

63. “Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.”

— Ben Jonson

64. “Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.”

— Ben Jonson

65. “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.”

— Ben Jonson

66. “Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.”

— Ben Jonson

67. “Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.”

— Ben Jonson

68. “Get money, still get money, boy, no matter by what means.”

— Ben Jonson

69. “Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.”

— Ben Jonson

70. “Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.”

— Ben Jonson

71. “Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.”

— Ben Jonson

72. “For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.”

— Ben Jonson

73. “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

74. “The burnt child dreads the fire.”

— Ben Jonson

75. “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

76. “Where guilty is, rage and courage doth abound.”

— Ben Jonson

77. “Success hath made me wanton.”

— Ben Jonson

78. “I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.”

— Ben Jonson

79. “Fortune, that favors fools.”

— Ben Jonson

80. “Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.”

— Ben Jonson

81. “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

82. “All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.”

— Ben Jonson

83. “Reader look, not on his picture but his book.”

— Ben Jonson

84. “The Devil is an Ass, I do acknowledge it.”

— Ben Jonson

85. “Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need.”

— Ben Jonson

86. “Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.”

— Ben Jonson

87. “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

88. “If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.”

— Ben Jonson

89. “No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”

— Ben Jonson

90. “The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.”

— Ben Jonson

91. “He threatens many that hath injured one.”

— Ben Jonson

92. “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.”

— Ben Jonson

93. “Peace is never more than one thought away.”

— Ben Jonson

94. “Blueness doth express trueness.”

— Ben Jonson

95. “Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.”

— Ben Jonson

96. “Hell itself must yield to industry.”

— Ben Jonson

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

— Ben Jonson

98. “What excellent fools religion makes of men.”

— Ben Jonson

99. “I do honor the very flea of his dog.”

— Ben Jonson

100. “Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.”

— Ben Jonson