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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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Thus would I double my life's fading spaceFor he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends not on number, but the choice of friends.
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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
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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.
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It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.
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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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The present is an eternal now.
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Life is an incurable disease.
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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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I would not fear nor wish my fate, but boldly say each night, to-morrow let my sun his beams display, or in clouds hide them I have lived today.
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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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?
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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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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The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
Abraham Cowley
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May I a small house and large garden have And a few friends, And many books, both true.
Abraham Cowley
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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
Abraham Cowley
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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Abraham Cowley