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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
Art
True
Great
Boast
Poverty
Willing
Sure
Lives

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Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act Where they shall see the time's deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear.
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The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
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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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Freedom doth with degree dispense.
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Success produces confidence confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
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Rich apparel has strange virtues it makes him that hath it without means esteemed for an excellent wit he that enjoys it with means puts the world in remembrance of his means.
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Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.
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Blueness doth express trueness.
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The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.
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The way to rise is to obey and please.
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Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.
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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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Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .
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Love that is ignorant and hatred have almost the same ends.
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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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O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!
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Still may syllables jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme, Resting never!
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A good life is a main argument.
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A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.
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He threatens many that hath injured one.
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