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
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
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.
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Lady, it is to be presumed, / Though art's hid causes are not found, / All is not sweet, all is not sound.
It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make men better be.
Underneath this stone doth lie / As much beauty as could die.
Such sweet neglect more taketh me, / Than all the adulteries of art; / They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Have you seen but a bright lily grow, / Before rude hands have touched it? / Have you marked but the fall o' the snow / Before the soil hath smutched it? . . . O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!
Have you a stool there to be melancholy upon?
I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth rendered to the use of man.
If he were / To be made honest by an act of parliament, / I should not alter in my faith of him.