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 COWLEYThe motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow, And short and long, were mixt and woven so, Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall, As made this decent measur’d dance of all. And this is Musick.
More Abraham Cowley Quotes
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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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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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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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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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Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
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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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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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It was not sleep that made him nod, he said, But too great weight and largeness of his head.
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Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
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The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man’s left to epitomize!
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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?
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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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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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Why to mute fish should’st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
ABRAHAM COWLEY