Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonsonwas an English playwright, poet, actor and literary critic of the 17th century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, or The Foxe, The Alchemistand Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedyand for his lyric poetry; he is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 June 1572
Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.
How ready is heaven to those that pray!
Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray; prosperity never.
Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.
Passions are spiritual rebels and raise sedition against the understanding.
I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.
All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites or subparasites.
Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.
A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.
Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.
Whom the disease of talking still once posses-seth, he can never hold his peace.
Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.
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.