Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
ABRAHAM COWLEYThe 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.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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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.
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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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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.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Why to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Nay, in death’s hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove’s.
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All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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.
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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 spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
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All the world’s bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
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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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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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The present is an eternal now.
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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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When Harvey’s violent passion she did see, Began to tremble and to flee; Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree
ABRAHAM COWLEY