Ben Jonson
The way to rise is to obey and please.Collection: Success
To the old, long life and treasure; To the young, all health and pleasure.Collection: Long
Rich apparel has strange virtues; it makes him that hath it without means esteemed for an excellent wit; he that enjoys it with means puts the world in remembrance of his means.Collection: Mean
The Devil is an Ass , I do acknowledge it.Collection: Devil
One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of decipheringCollection: Women
Though I am young, and cannot tell Either what Death or Love is well, Yet I have heard they both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts. And then again, I have been told Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold; So that I fear they do but bring Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. As in a ruin we it call One thing to be blown up, or fall; Or to our end like way may have By a flash of lightning, or a wave; So Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand; Except Love’s fires the virtue have To fight the frost out of the grave.Collection: Fall
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.Collection: Prayer
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.Collection: Noble
Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .Collection: Use
Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.Collection: Names
That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy will be at last bestowed by time.Collection: Truth
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t'inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.Collection: Prayer
God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man's dearer than to himself.Collection: Men
To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.Collection: Change
How Fortune piles her sports when she begins to practise them!Collection: Sports
I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.Collection: Foolish
... the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.Collection: Anchors
Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true.Collection: Slander
The day For whose returns, and many, all these pray; And so do I.Collection: Birthday
For he that once is good, is ever great.Collection: Greatness
I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored to belie me.-It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.Collection: Calumny Is
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.Collection: House
Reader look, not on his picture but his book.Collection: Book
Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance .Collection: Art
When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.Collection: Grief
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.Collection: Writing
Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.Collection: Writing
It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.Collection: Art
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.Collection: Love
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.Collection: Punishment
He that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory.Collection: Virtue
Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.Collection: Men
The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.Collection: Men
He that is respectless in his courses oft sells his reputation at cheap market.Collection: Reputation
O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.Collection: Fear
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.Collection: Ambition
All concord's born of contraries.Collection: Contradiction
Hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat.Collection: Cat
Prevent your day at morning.Collection: Morning
Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.Collection: Wise
Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking their roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers.Collection: Men
Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.Collection: Beer
Guilt's a terrible thing.Collection: Guilt
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be one to us, to suffer them is valor too.Collection: Courage