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Force works on servile natures, not the free.

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
Servile
Natures
Works
Free
Force
Nature

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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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Silence in woman is like speech in man.
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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.
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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 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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If all you boast of your great art be true Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.
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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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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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Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
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The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.
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Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
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Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.
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Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.
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Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
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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.
Ben Jonson
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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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Calumnies are answered best with silence.
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Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.
Ben Jonson
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Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
Ben Jonson
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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.
Ben Jonson