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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.

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
Vices
Weakness
Compassion
Virtue
Justice
Though
Nearer
Become
Confess
May
Vice

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Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction.
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It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.
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How near to good is what is fair!
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All discourses but my own afflict me they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome
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Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
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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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Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
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No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.
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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
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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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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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The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
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I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
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I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.
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Hell itself must yield to industry.
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To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
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