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Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.

Abraham Cowley

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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Enjoy
Thankful
Wish
Hour
Neither
Fear
Approach
Past
Present
Time
Hours
Lasts
Last
Approaches

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
Abraham Cowley
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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.
Abraham Cowley
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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!
Abraham Cowley
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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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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
Abraham Cowley
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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.
Abraham Cowley
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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? 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
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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
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All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
Abraham Cowley
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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.
Abraham Cowley
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The monster London laugh at me.
Abraham Cowley
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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
Abraham Cowley
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
Abraham Cowley
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There is some help for all the defects of fortune for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.
Abraham Cowley
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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
Abraham Cowley
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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.
Abraham Cowley
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I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... 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
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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, 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
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Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends not on number, but the choice of friends.
Abraham Cowley
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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley