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 COWLEYThis only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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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!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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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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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Coy Nature, (which remain’d, though aged grown, A beauteous virgin still, enjoy’d by none, Nor seen unveil’d by anyone),
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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.
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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.
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Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
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All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
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Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.
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Life is an incurable disease.
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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
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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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Nothing in Nature’s sober found, But an eternal Health goes round. Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high
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Hope! fortune’s cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
ABRAHAM COWLEY