Abraham Cowley Quotes

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.

Life is an incurable disease.

For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.

Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.

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 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.

Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!

May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.

Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.

Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.

This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.

s a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.

Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.

But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.

The present is all the ready money Fate can give.

The present is an eternal now.

Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.

Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?

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!

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

The world's a scene of changes.

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.

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.

Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.

Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.

Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.

What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?

The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.

Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.

Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.

Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!

Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.

Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!

Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.

Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.

His time's forever, everywhere his place.

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.

All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.

When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.

Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?

The monster London laugh at me.

I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast.