Ben Jonson: Trending quotes

Ben Jonson trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection

Ben Jonson: 186 quotes6 likes

“He that fears death, or mourns it, in the just,
Shows of the resurrection little trust.”

XXXIV, Of Death, lines 1-2
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

“The world knows only two, — that's Rome and I.”

Sejanus (1603), Act V, scene 1

“The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:
Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
How willful blind is he then, that would stray,
And hath it in his powers, to make his way!
This world death's region is, the other life's:
And here, it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it.
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.”

Ben Jonson

LXXX, Of Life and Death, lines 1-8
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

“Hang sorrow! care'll kill a cat.”

Ben Jonson Every Man in His Humour

Act i, Scene 3. Comparable to "Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat", George Wither, "Poem on Christmas"
Every Man in His Humour (1598)

“Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no sea by some 100 miles.”

Ben Jonson

Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (1711)

“Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand,
To read it well: that is, to understand.”

Ben Jonson

I, To The Reader, lines 1-2
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

“Those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.”

Ben Jonson

XLVII, An Epistle, Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben, lines 9-10. Comparable to: "They never taste who always drink; They always talk who never think", Matthew Prior, Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Underwoods

“Where it concerns himself,
Who's angry at a slander makes it true.”

Ben Jonson Catiline His Conspiracy

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III, scene i

“Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance.”

Ben Jonson Every Man out of His Humour

Every Man out of His Humour (1598), Act I, scene 1

“A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a post out of the way.”

Ben Jonson

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries

“Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first.”

Ben Jonson

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries

“Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
And almost every vice — almighty gold.”

Ben Jonson

Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, lines 1-2. Comparable to "The flattering, mighty, nay, almighty gold", John Wolcot, To Kien Long, Ode iv; "Almighty dollar", Washington Irving, The Creole Village.
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), The Forest

“Thou look'st like Antichrist in that lewd hat.”

Ben Jonson

The Alchemist (1610), Act IV, scene vii

“Folly often goes beyond her bounds; but Impudence knows none.”

Ben Jonson

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries

“Preserving the sweetness of proportion and expressing itself beyond expression.”

Ben Jonson

The Masque of Hymen (1606)

“So breaks the sun earth's rugged chains,
Wherein rude winter bound her veins;
So grows both stream and source of price,
That lately fettered were with ice.
So naked trees get crispèd heads,
And coloured coats the roughest meads,
And all get vigour, youth and spright,
That are but looked on by his light.”

Ben Jonson

The Irish Masque at Court (1613)

“Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,—
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

Ben Jonson

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS. No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's poems.

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

Ben Jonson

VI, To Alchemists, lines 1-2
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

“The dignity of truth is lost
With much protesting.”

Ben Jonson Catiline His Conspiracy

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III, scene ii

“Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy!
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry:
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.”

Ben Jonson

XLV, On My First Son, lines 1-12
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams