Best Ben Jonson Quotes

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity

'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.

I'll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news.

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.

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

A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pestilence, it doth infect the houses of the brain till not a thought, or motion, in the mind, be free from the black poison of suspect.

O, for an engine, to keep back all clocks, or make the sun forget his motion!

The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.

Cares that have entered once in the breast, will have whole possession of the rest.

Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.

There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.

Woman, the more careful she is about her face, the more careless about her house.

When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

They say Princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.

If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick