Ben Jonson Quotes

That Shakespeare wanted Art.

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears: Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her division, when she sings. Droop herbs, and flowers, Fall grief in showers, Our beauties are not ours; O, I could still, Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, Drop, drop, drop, drop, Since nature's pride is now, a withered daffodil.

A gentleman reading a poem that began with Where is that man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen? [Jonson] calling his cook, asked if he had ever heard of her, who answering "No," demonstrate to him Lo, there the man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen.

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.

Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

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.

drink to the cause, and pure vapours

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.

Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

Though the most be players, some must be spectators.

Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room; Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

Pues tengo para mí que, si se alimentan los celos, peores son los cuernos de la mente que los que se asoman entre los pelos

Lady: How do's it fit? wilt come together? Prudence: Hardly. Lad: Thou must make shift with it. Pride feels no Pain.

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

I loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.