Top 82 Quotes & Sayings by Abraham Cowley
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English poet Abraham Cowley.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right.
Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.
Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.
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.
The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy.
Life is an incurable disease.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high.
All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
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.
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.
Why dost thou heap up wealth, which thou must quit,
Or what is worse, be left by it?
Why dost thou load thyself when thou 'rt to fly,
Oh, man! ordain'd to die?
Why dost thou build up stately rooms on high,
Thou who art under ground to lie?
Thou sow'st and plantest, but no fruit must see,
For death, alas! is reaping thee.
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.
The present is all the ready money Fate can give.
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!
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?
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
Is to love, but love in vain.
Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live.
What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
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.
The present is an eternal now.
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.
Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal Now does always last.
Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.
Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Who that has reason, and his smell,
Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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.
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.
Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.
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.
The world's a scene of changes.
Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
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.
The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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