Abraham Cowley Quotes

80 Sourced Quotes

Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.

Abraham Cowley
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.

Abraham Cowley
Lukewarmness I account a sin
As great in love as in religion.

Abraham Cowley
The world's a scene of changes, and to be
Constant, in Nature were inconstancy.

Abraham Cowley
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

Abraham Cowley
This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.

Abraham Cowley
Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.

Abraham Cowley
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.

Abraham Cowley
Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.

Abraham Cowley
Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.

Abraham Cowley
All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.

Abraham Cowley
He saw the beauties of his shape and face,
His female sweetness, and his manly grace

Abraham Cowley
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.

Abraham Cowley
Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.

Abraham Cowley
Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.

Abraham Cowley
So when by various Turns of the Celestial Dance, In many thousand years, A Star, so long unknown, appears, Though Heaven it self more beauteous by it grow, It troubles and alarms the World below, Does to the Wise a Star, to Fools a Meteor show.

Abraham Cowley
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, 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.

Abraham Cowley
For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.

Abraham Cowley
I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast....

Abraham Cowley
Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.

Abraham Cowley
Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.

Abraham Cowley
Well did he know how Palms by oppression speed,
Victorious, and the Victors sacred Meed!
The Burden lifts them higher. Well did he know,
How a tame stream does wild and dangerous grow
By unjust force; he now with wanton play,
Kisses the smiling Banks, and glides
But his known Channel stopt, begins to roare,
And swell with rage, and buffet the dull shore.
His mutinous waters hurry to the War,
And Troops of Waves come rolling from afar.
Then scorns he such weak stops to his free source,
And overruns the neighboring fields with violent course.

Abraham Cowley
I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore
In that right hand which held the Crook before;
Who from best Poet, best of Kings did grow;
The two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow.

Abraham Cowley
Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.

Abraham Cowley
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?

Abraham Cowley
Coy Nature, (which remain'd, though aged grown,
A beauteous virgin still, enjoy'd by none,
Nor seen unveil'd by anyone),
When Harvey's violent passion she did see,
Began to tremble and to flee;
Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree:
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!

Abraham Cowley
Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name.

Abraham Cowley
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

Abraham Cowley
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise
As praises from the men, whom all men praise.

Abraham Cowley
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.

Abraham Cowley