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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.

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
Would
Published
Servant
Glory
Virtue

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I'll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.
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Your highest female grace is silence.
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Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.
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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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Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true.
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Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
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Heaven prepares good men with crosses but no ill can happen to a good man.
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Nothing is more short-lived than pride.
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Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.
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I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
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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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One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering
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Hell itself must yield to industry.
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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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Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
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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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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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I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
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Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray prosperity never.
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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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