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 COWLEYI 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.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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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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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
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Life is an incurable disease.
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The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government
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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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Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning’s gentle wine!
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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
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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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Fill all the Glasses there; for why Should every Creature Drink but I? Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
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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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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
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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.
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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
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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 Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame
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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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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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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
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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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Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.
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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.
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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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Nothing in Nature’s sober found, But an eternal Health goes round. Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high
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When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty’s handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
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