Ben Jonson

Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast.

Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.

That old bald cheater, Time.

To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

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

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

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand".

Calumnies are answered best with silence.

For this I find, where jealousy is fed,
Horns in the mind are worse than on the head.

Courses even with the sun Doth her mighty brother run.

SIR P: Sir, calumnies are answer'd best with silence.

Get money; still get money, boy, No matter by what means.

Truth is the trial of itself And needs no other touch, And purer than the purest gold, Refine it ne'er so much.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame, a flatterer.

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.