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.
ABRAHAM COWLEYI 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.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
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His time’s forever, everywhere his place.
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Why to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
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“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
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The present is an eternal now.
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Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
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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!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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.
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I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast.
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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
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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.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb’d as Death, the Night.
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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.
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All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
ABRAHAM COWLEY






