Quote

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, Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone, That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.

Abraham Cowley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Gone
Streams
Running
River
Doe
Stopped
Bold
Ever
Till
Stream
Whole
Rivers
Venture
Work
Begin
Expecting
Time
Stay
Bank
Wise
Runs

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

Image
Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Abraham Cowley
Image
What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley
Image
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.
Abraham Cowley
Image
This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
Abraham Cowley
Image
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
Abraham Cowley
Image
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, 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.
Abraham Cowley
Image
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?
Abraham Cowley
Image
Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Awake, awake, my Lyre!And tell thy silent master's humble taleIn sounds that may prevailSounds that gentle thoughts inspire:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
Abraham Cowley
Image
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? 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
Image
Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
Abraham Cowley
Image
Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Nothing in Nature's sober found, But an eternal Health goes round. Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high-- Fill all the Glasses there for why Should every Creature Drink but I? Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Abraham Cowley
Image
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Life is an incurable disease.
Abraham Cowley
Image
The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
Abraham Cowley
Image
Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
Abraham Cowley