Ben Jonson Quotes

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

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.

Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose,
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver,
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breath, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night-
Goddess excellently bright.

That old bald cheater, Time.

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log, dry, bald and sere: A lily of a day, Is fairer far, in May, Although it fall, and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be.

I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind, For else it could not be, That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my love behind.

Courses even with the sun Doth her mighty brother run.

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

There was never a great genius without a touch of madness.

That Shakespeare wanted Art.

Observe him, as his watch observes his clock, and true as turquoise in the dear lord's ring, looks well or ill with him.

Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

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