Quote

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?

Ben Jonson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Truly
Flies
Seem
Mistress
Alone
Shadows
Stills
Pursue
Seems
Deny
Women
Shadow
Styled
Still
Court
Wooing
Men
Follow
Denies

More quotes by Ben Jonson

Image
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
Ben Jonson
Image
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright.
Ben Jonson
Image
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
Ben Jonson
Image
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.
Ben Jonson
Image
Force works on servile natures, not the free.
Ben Jonson
Image
Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.
Ben Jonson
Image
Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
Ben Jonson
Image
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.
Ben Jonson
Image
Freedom doth with degree dispense.
Ben Jonson
Image
Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.
Ben Jonson
Image
To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Ben Jonson
Image
The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
Ben Jonson
Image
If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick
Ben Jonson
Image
How near to good is what is fair!
Ben Jonson
Image
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?
Ben Jonson
Image
I do honor the very flea of his dog.
Ben Jonson
Image
Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed tobacco.
Ben Jonson
Image
Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever Spend not then his gifts in vain: Suns that set may rise again But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys.
Ben Jonson
Image
It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
Ben Jonson
Image
To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.
Ben Jonson