Abraham Cowley Quotations

Love in her sunny eyes does basking play;/ Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair;/ Love does on both her lips for ever stray;/ And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there./ In all her outward parts Love's always seen;/ But, oh, he never went within.

For why / Should every creature drink but I, / Why, man of morals, tell me why?

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!

We may talk as we please of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles in fields of d'or or d'argent, but if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in the field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms

Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.

The present is an eternal now.

The present is all the ready money Fate can give.

Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

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

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.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.

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.

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.

Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.

"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."

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!

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

Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.

Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.

The world's a scene of changes.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.

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.

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?

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

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

Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.

Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose, To th' active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn's string a touch more sore and grave. The motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow, And short and long, were mixt and woven so, Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall, As made this decent measur'd dance of all. And this is Musick.

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.

His time's forever, everywhere his place.

Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on.

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

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

Coy Nature, (which remain'd, though aged grown, A beauteous virgin still, enjoy'd by none, Nor seen unveil'd by anyone), When Harvey's violent passion she did see, Began to tremble and to flee; Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree: There Daphne's Lover stopped, and thought it much The very leaves of her to touch: But Harvey, our Apollo, stopp'd not so; Into the Bark and Root he after her did go!

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

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

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

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

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

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

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

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

Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.

The monster London laugh at me.

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.

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

Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Life is an incurable disease.

Well then; I now do plainly see, / This busy world and I shall ne'er agree.

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

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

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again; The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair

Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.

The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy.

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.

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right.

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right

Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.

A mighty pain to love it is, and 'tis a pain that pain to miss; but of all the pains, the greatest pain is to love, but love in vain.