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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
People
Virtue
Knowledge
Used
Wells
Well
Foolishness
Enough
Despise
Must
Vanity
World
Solitude

More quotes by 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.
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God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
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Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
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For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
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Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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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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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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
Abraham Cowley
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To-day is ours what do we fear? To-day is ours we have it here. Let's treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, with us to stay. Let's banish business, banish sorrow To the gods belong to-morrow.
Abraham Cowley
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
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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The present is an eternal now.
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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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley
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Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
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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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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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
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