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 COWLEYWho that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Our yesterday’s to-morrow now is gone, And still a new to-morrow does come on. We by to-morrow draw out all our store, Till the exhausted well can yield no more.
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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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His time’s forever, everywhere his place.
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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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This a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.
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Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
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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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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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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
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To-day is ours; what do we fear? To-day is ours; we have it here. Let’s treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, with us to stay.
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The world’s a scene of changes.
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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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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep’rate friends.
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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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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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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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Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne’er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov’d and loving me.
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His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.
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There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
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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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Poets by Death are conquer’d but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
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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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Why to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
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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.
ABRAHAM COWLEY