Quote

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

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Ben Jonson
Age: 65 †
Born: 1572
Born: June 21
Died: 1637
Died: August 6
Actor
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Writer
City of Westminster
Benjamin Jonson
Beats
Scratches
Succeed
Files
Turn
Desk
Bring
Desks
Turns
Crafts
Quills
Poor
Cast
Forge
Away
Casts
File
Beat
Scratch

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To the old, long life and treasure To the young, all health and pleasure.
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Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
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The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
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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.
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I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
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Tis not the wholesome sharp mortality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen.
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Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.
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A good life is a main argument.
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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.
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Your highest female grace is silence.
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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.
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Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
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The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
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