Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
ABRAHAM COWLEYThe present is an eternal now.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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To th’ active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn’s string a touch more sore and grave.
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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!
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Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
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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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Life is an incurable disease.
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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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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
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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
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Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
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Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning’s gentle wine!
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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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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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It was not sleep that made him nod, he said, But too great weight and largeness of his head.
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Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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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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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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:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
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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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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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Thus would I double my life’s fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
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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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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb’d as Death, the Night.
ABRAHAM COWLEY