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Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

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
Truth
Thing
Good
Men
Mortality
Immortal
Proper
Use
Given

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It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
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Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.
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There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting.
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Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.
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Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true.
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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 soul of man is infinite in what it covets.
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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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He was not of an age, but for all time!
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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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Nor shall our cups make any guilty men But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.
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And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.
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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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We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
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Calumnies are answered best with silence.
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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
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Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
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To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.
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