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.
ABRAHAM COWLEYNeither the praise nor the blame is our own.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
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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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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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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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The world’s a scene of changes.
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In fields d’or or d’argent; but, if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.”
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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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Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.
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Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone, That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
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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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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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Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.
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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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The present is all the ready money Fate can give.
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Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th’ approaches of the last.
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What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!
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“We may talk what we please,” he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the arts, “of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles
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The monster London laugh at me.
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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
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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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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
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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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The liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
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As for being much known by sight, and pointed out, I cannot comprehend the honor that lies withal; whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor.
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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb’d as Death, the Night.
ABRAHAM COWLEY