The voices / 101 fragments

Ben Jonson

1573 AD — 1637 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗wealth time love life death character learning justice

Historical source references

Every Man in his Humour
Every Man out of his Humour
Epicœne; Or, the Silent Woman
The Poetaster
Sejanus
The Masque of Hymen
The Gipsies Metamorphosed
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L
Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland
The Forest
To the Memory of Shakespeare
Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke
Underwoods
Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet
Printed citation: Ben Jonson
Printed citation: Ben
Page 335 · printed citation: Ben Jonson (A Celebration of Charis)
Page 339 · printed citation: Ben Jonson (Mores Aulici)
Page 121 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: CHRISTIANITY
Page 139 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: CONSCIENCE
Page 168 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: DEATH
Page 339 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: JUSTICE
Page 632 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: VALOUR
Page 71 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Education
Page 93 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Fortune
Page 229 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Revolution
Page 238 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Silence
Page 250 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Style
Page 205 · printed citation: Ben Jonson · subject: Poets
Printed page 2 · quotation 16 · Ben Jonson · Underwoods

Archive entries

01Undated

Talking is the disease of age.

Ben Jonson / quote

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02Undated

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall of the snow, Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of the beaver? Or swan’s down ever? Or have smelt o’ the bud of the briar, Or the nard in the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she!

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03Undated

I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great ones, is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular men feign themselves to be servants of others, to make these slaves to them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, etc., that they may be food for him.

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04Undated

But for that contention and brave strife The Christian hath to enjoy, the future life, He were the wretchedest of the race of men; But as he soars at that, he bruiseth then The serpent’s head; gets above death and sin, And, sure of Heaven, rides triumphing in.

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05Undated

Study conscience, more than thou wouldst fame; Though both be good, the latter yet is worst, And ever is ill got, without the first.

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06Undated

This world death’s region is, the other, life’s: And here it should be one of our first strifes, So to front death, as each might judge us past it: For good men but see death, the others taste it.

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07Undated

A just man cannot fear, Not, though the malice of traducing tongues, The open vastness of a tyrant’s ear, The senseless rigour of the wrested laws, Or the red eyes of strain’d authority, Should, in a point meet all to take his life, His innocence is armour ’gainst all these.

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08Undated

I never saw an angry person valiant: Virtue is never aided by a vice.

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09Undated

Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

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10Undated

Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.

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11Undated

Let them call it mischief; when it's past and prospered, 't will be virtue.

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12Undated

True gladness doth not always speak; joy bred and born but in the tongue is weak.

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13Undated

As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.

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14Undated

Poets are far rarer births than kings.

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15Undated

In the hope to meet Shortly again, and make our absence sweet.

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16Undated

Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar.

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17Undated

Follow a shadow, it still flies you, :Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you ; :Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, :Styled but the shadows of us men?

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18Undated

Apes are apes though clothed in scarlet.

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19Undated

Art hath an enemy called ignorance.

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20Undated

Care that is enter'd once into the breast, Will have the whole possession, ere it rest.

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21Undated

Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalm'd; but he that will Govern and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails; What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers; Where her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop 'em; What strands, what shelves, what rooks do threaten her.

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22Undated

The gods Grow angry with your patience: 't is their care, And must be yours, that guilty men escape not: As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.

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23Undated

A secret in his mouth, Is like a wild bird put into a cage, Whose door no sooner opens, but 't is out.

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24Undated

Soul of the age! Th' applause! delight! the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee room; 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.

Ben Jonson / quote

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Ben Jonson

Archive entries

Read further

Meditations

The Republic

The Prophet