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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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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Well
Foolishness
Enough
Despise
Must
Vanity
World
Solitude
People
Virtue
Knowledge
Used
Wells

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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Man is too near all kinds of beasts,--a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.
Abraham Cowley
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Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
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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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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All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
Abraham Cowley
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And I myself a Catholic will be, So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee. Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the Poets militant below.
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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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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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
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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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
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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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Books should, not Business, entertain the Light And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
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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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.
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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The world's a scene of changes.
Abraham Cowley
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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.
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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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
Abraham Cowley