Skip to content

A crafty knave needs no broker.

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: quoted in Every Man in his Humour; also in Taylor's London to Hamburgh.
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by Ben Jonson

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

Every Man in His Humour (1598)

Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years.

Every Man in His Humour (1598)

Bad men excuse their faults, good men will leave them.

The dignity of truth is lost
With much protesting.

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611)

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

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

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611)

The Devil is an Ass, I do acknowledge it.

The Devil Is an Ass (1616)

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike;
One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)

All Ben Jonson quotes →

Topics

Justice

More quotes by Ben Jonson

The world knows only two, — that's Rome and I.

Sejanus (1603)

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 Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)

There's reason good, that you good laws should make:
Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.

The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616)

Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco.

True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.

Cynthia's Revels (1600)

All Ben Jonson quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

If the church ... does not make God's liberation of the oppressed central in its mission and proclamation, how can it rest easy with a condemned criminal as the dominant symbol of its message?

James H. Cone Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986)

It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

Muhammad

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ben Jonson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.