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There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.

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
Creeds
Wanting
Doctrine
Nature
Good

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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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Reader look, not on his picture but his book.
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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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A good life is a main argument.
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Success hath made me wanton.
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Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.
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To the old, long life and treasure To the young, all health and pleasure.
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I do honor the very flea of his dog.
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All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
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It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused the understanding is not.
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I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
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I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t'inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul lest it be thought the breath Of discontent or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.
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Words borrowed of Antiquity do lend a kind of Majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes. For they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win to themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newest of the past Language, is the best.
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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.
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The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
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How near to good is what is fair!
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The voice so sweet, the words so fair, As some soft chime had stroked the air And though the sound had parted thence, Still left an echo in the sense.
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Confound these ancestors... They've stolen our best ideas!
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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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What excellent fools religion makes of men.
Ben Jonson