Top 79 Abraham Cowley Quotes
#1. There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.
Abraham Cowley
#2. A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
Abraham Cowley
#3. The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy.
Abraham Cowley
#4. Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Abraham Cowley
#6. Awake, awake, my Lyre!And tell thy silent master's humble taleIn sounds that may prevail;Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Abraham Cowley
#7. To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
Abraham Cowley
#8. Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
Abraham Cowley
#9. It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.
Abraham Cowley
#10. Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
Abraham Cowley
#11. Ah yet, ere I descend to the grave, May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, and many books, both true, both wise and both delightful too.
Abraham Cowley
#12. Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
Abraham Cowley
#13. Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on.
Abraham Cowley
#15. Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
Abraham Cowley
#16. Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
Abraham Cowley
#17. Who that has reason, and his smell,
Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
Abraham Cowley
#18. I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast ...
Abraham Cowley
#19. Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal Health goes round.
Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high
Fill all the Glasses there; for why
Should every Creature Drink but I?
Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Abraham Cowley
#20. Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
Abraham Cowley
#21. "We may talk what we please," he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the arts, "of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles, in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms."
Abraham Cowley
#23. I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.
Abraham Cowley
#24. Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
Abraham Cowley
#25. Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
Abraham Cowley
#26. Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Abraham Cowley
#27. Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley
#28. There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
Abraham Cowley
#29. Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Abraham Cowley
#30. And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets militant below.
Abraham Cowley
#31. Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
Abraham Cowley
#32. Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise,
He who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay,
Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone,
That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
Abraham Cowley
#33. Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.
Abraham Cowley
#34. Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
Abraham Cowley
#35. Banish business, banish sorrow. To the gods belongs tomorrow.
Abraham Cowley
#37. God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
Abraham Cowley
#38. Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
Abraham Cowley
#39. Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.
Abraham Cowley
#40. For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
Abraham Cowley
#41. Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live.
Abraham Cowley
#42. All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
Abraham Cowley
#43. Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.
Abraham Cowley
#44. The Sunflow'r, thinking 'twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t' excuse the blame; It was not sleep that made him nod, he said, But too great weight and largeness of his head.
Abraham Cowley
#46. May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true.
Abraham Cowley
#47. Much will always wanting be
To him who much desires.
Abraham Cowley
#48. What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!
Abraham Cowley
#49. His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right.
Abraham Cowley
#50. Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
Abraham Cowley
#51. The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
Abraham Cowley
#52. Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
Abraham Cowley
#53. Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.
Abraham Cowley
#54. This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Abraham Cowley
#56. What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley
#57. But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.
Abraham Cowley
#58. Man is too near all kinds of beasts,
a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.
Abraham Cowley
#59. Ere I descend to th' grave,
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books.
Abraham Cowley
#60. The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
Abraham Cowley
#61. When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
Abraham Cowley
#62. As for being much known by sight, and pointed out, I cannot comprehend the honor that lies withal; whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor.
Abraham Cowley
#63. Curs'd be that wretch (Death's factor sure) who brought Dire swords into the peaceful world, and taught Smiths (who before could only make The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man's left to epitomize!
Abraham Cowley
#64. Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
Abraham Cowley
#66. Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
Abraham Cowley
#68. Our yesterday's to-morrow now is gone,
And still a new to-morrow does come on.
We by to-morrow draw out all our store,
Till the exhausted well can yield no more.
Abraham Cowley
#69. Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Abraham Cowley
#70. Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetic variety than the voyages of Ulysses or Aeneas?
Abraham Cowley
#71. Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
Abraham Cowley
#72. I would not fear nor wish my fate, but boldly say each night, to-morrow let my sun his beams display, or in clouds hide them; I have lived today.
Abraham Cowley
#74. Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
Abraham Cowley
#75. All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
Abraham Cowley
#76. Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley
#77. Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
Abraham Cowley
#78. To-day is ours; what do we fear?
To-day is ours; we have it here.
Let's treat it kindly, that it may
Wish, at least, with us to stay.
Let's banish business, banish sorrow;
To the gods belong to-morrow.
Abraham Cowley
#79. Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
Abraham Cowley
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