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If all you boast of your great art be true Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

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
Lives
Art
True
Great
Boast
Poverty
Willing
Sure

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I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.
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Out of clothes out of countenance, out of countenance out of wit.
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If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again turn it new.
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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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Tell troth and shame the devil.
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Drink today, and drown all sorrow You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow Best, while you have it, use your breath There is no drinking after death.
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Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.
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Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
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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 the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.
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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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It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.
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I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
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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?
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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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Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.
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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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He was not of an age, but for all time!
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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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He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
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