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 COWLEYWater and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
The present is an eternal now.
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Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
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?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Let’s banish business, banish sorrow; To the gods belong to-morrow.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Hope! fortune’s cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
ABRAHAM COWLEY -
But what is woman? Only one of nature’s agreeable blunders.
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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 -
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
ABRAHAM COWLEY