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Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.

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
Begin
Either
Common
Ends
Music
Mean
Musicians
Musician
Disease

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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?
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No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.
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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.
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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.
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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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I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
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I do honor the very flea of his dog.
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Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
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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.
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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.
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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
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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-.
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There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
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Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
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Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalm'd but he that will Govern and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop 'em What strands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten her.
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A good life is a main argument.
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The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
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Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats, or winds that they be favoring and fill our sails, or meats that they be nourishing for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us but they know it not.
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Forbear, you things That stand upon the pinnacles of state, To boast your slippery height! when you do fall, You dash yourselves in pieces, ne'er to rise: And he that lends you pity, is not wise.
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O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
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