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Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.

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
Nest
Nests
Build
Forget
Book
Without
World

More quotes by 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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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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s a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.
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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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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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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
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His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
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!
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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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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
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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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.
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His time's forever, everywhere his place.
Abraham Cowley
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Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Abraham Cowley
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Curs'd be that wretch (Death's factor sure) who brought Dire swords into the peaceful world, and taught Smiths (who before could only make The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man's left to epitomize!
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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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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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
Abraham Cowley
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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
Abraham Cowley
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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