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.
ABRAHAM COWLEYWhy to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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Nay, in death’s hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove’s.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
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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.
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Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
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Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.
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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
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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.
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Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
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Poets by Death are conquer’d but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
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May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.
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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.
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The monster London laugh at me.
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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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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.
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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?
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His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.
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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?
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
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When Harvey’s violent passion she did see, Began to tremble and to flee; Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree
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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
ABRAHAM COWLEY