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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
Nests
Build
Forget
Book
Without
World
Nest

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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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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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
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.
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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?
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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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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Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
Abraham Cowley
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The present is an eternal now.
Abraham Cowley
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Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.
Abraham Cowley
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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
Abraham Cowley
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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.
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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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
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Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Abraham Cowley
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Thus would I double my life's fading spaceFor he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
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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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
Abraham Cowley
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This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
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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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
Abraham Cowley