Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb’d as Death, the Night.
ABRAHAM COWLEYNature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; ‘Tis fill’d wherever thou dost tread, Nature’s self’s thy Ganymede.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Hope! fortune’s cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th’ approaches of the last.
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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.
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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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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?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; ‘Tis fill’d wherever thou dost tread, Nature’s self’s thy Ganymede.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
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Nay, in death’s hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove’s.
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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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Thus would I double my life’s fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
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Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
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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 COWLEY






