126 quotes
The Devil is an Ass! fool'd off! and beaten!
The Devil Is an Ass (1616)
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.
To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1618)
Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known.
They that love mirth, let them heartily drink,
'Tis the only receipt to make sorrow sink.
Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue, and not fate:
Next to that virtue is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel.
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)
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.
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640)
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks...
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640)
Come my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)
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.
Catiline His Conspiracy (1611)
And so to tread
As if the wind, not she, did walk;
Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk.
A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home
Can be contented to applaud myself, * * * with joy
To see how plump my bags are and my barns.
The voice so sweet, the words so fair,
As some soft chime had stroked the air;
And, though the sound were parted thence,
Still left an echo in the sense.
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640)
Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.
But I do hate him as I hate the devil.
Every Man Out of his Humour (1599)
Art hath an enemy called Ignorance.
Every Man out of His Humour (1598)
How near to good is what is fair!
It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640)
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.
Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (1711)
A skein of silk without a knot!
A fair march made without a halt!
A curious form without a fault!
A printed book without a blot!
All beauty!—and without a spot.
Princes that would their people should do well
Must at themselves begin, as at the head;
For men, by their example, pattern out
Their imitations, and regard of laws:
A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.