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
Bring
Desks
Turns
Crafts
Quills
Poor
Cast
Forge
Away
Casts
File
Beat
Scratch
Beats
Scratches
Succeed
Files
Turn
Desk

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The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
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Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.
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It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
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The way to rise is to obey and please.
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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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Freedom doth with degree dispense.
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The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
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Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.
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I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.
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Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
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Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray prosperity never.
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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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I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
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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?
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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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The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.
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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 .
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To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.
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