Best 66 quotes of Abraham Cowley on MyQuotes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.

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!

Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Life is an incurable disease.

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

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.

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

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

Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

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?

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.

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.

Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.

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

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

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

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.

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

The monster London laugh at me.

The present is all the ready money Fate can give.

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

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.

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.

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

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