Abraham Cowley Quotes

#1. Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#2. Ere I descend to th' grave,
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#3. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#4. But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#5. What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own? - Author: Abraham Cowley

#6. The world's a scene of changes. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#7. This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#8. Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#9. Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#10. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#11. The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#12. His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#13. 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! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#14. Much will always wanting be
To him who much desires. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#15. May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#16. His time's forever, everywhere his place. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#17. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#18. Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#19. All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#20. Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#21. 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? - Author: Abraham Cowley

#22. Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#23. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#24. Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#25. Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#26. All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#27. Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#28. The present is an eternal now. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#29. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#30. Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#31. For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#32. Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#33. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#34. The present is all the ready money Fate can give. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#35. Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#36. The monster London laugh at me. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#37. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#38. 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! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#39. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#40. When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#41. 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.
- Author: Abraham Cowley

#42. Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#43. 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? - Author: Abraham Cowley

#44. I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast ... - Author: Abraham Cowley

#45. Who that has reason, and his smell,
Would not among roses and jasmin dwell? - Author: Abraham Cowley

#46. Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#47. Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be! - Author: Abraham Cowley

#48. Neither the praise nor the blame is our own. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#49. Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#50. Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover? - Author: Abraham Cowley

#51. "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." - Author: Abraham Cowley

#52. Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#53. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#54. Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#55. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#56. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#57. Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#58. Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#59. The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#60. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#61. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#62. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#63. Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#64. God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#65. Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#66. Banish business, banish sorrow. To the gods belongs tomorrow. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#67. Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#68. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#69. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#70. Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#71. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#72. Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#73. There have been fewer friends on earth than kings. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#74. Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#75. Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#76. Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#77. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#78. 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. - Author: Abraham Cowley

#79. Life is an incurable disease. - Author: Abraham Cowley