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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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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Choices
Friends
Would
Acquaintance
Friendship
Number
Choice
Depends
Numbers

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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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.
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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
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There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
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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.
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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Thus would I double my life's fading spaceFor he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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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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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
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A mighty pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain.
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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
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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, 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
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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
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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The Sunflow'r, thinking 'twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t' excuse the blame It was not sleep that made him nod, he said, But too great weight and largeness of his head.
Abraham Cowley
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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Abraham Cowley
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To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city to be a philosopher, from the world or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
Abraham Cowley