Ben Jonson Men Quotations

Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.

Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.

Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

No man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

The pipe marks the point at which the orangutan ends and man begins.

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.

Truth is man's proper good, and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t' his other virtues, They're all unseason'd without it.

Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.

Cut Men's throats with whisperings.

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?

The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.

Silence in woman is like speech in man.

Princes that would their people should do well Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their limitations, and regard of laws: A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.

It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.

God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To him man's dearer than to himself.

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But 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.

To men pressed by their wants all change is ever welcome.

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.

Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.

A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it.

Good men but see death, the wicked taste it.

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty.

I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.

If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being a good poet without first being a good man.

The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.

When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.

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.

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.

I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.

Fortune, thou hadst no deity, if men Had wisdom.

Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them.

Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something.

I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.

A good man should and must Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.

Man and wife make one fool.

What excellent fools religion makes of men.

The man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him.

The two chief things that give a man reputation in counsel, are the opinion of his honesty, and the opinion of his wisdom; the authority of those two will persuade.

No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.

It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make men better be.

Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.