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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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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Make
Brought
Spades
Men
Taught
Dire
Epitomize
World
Wise
Swords
Smiths
Share
Factor
Rake
Sure
Cruel
Rakes
Death
Factors
Wretch
Left
Arts
Plough
Art
Peaceful
Spade

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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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
Abraham Cowley
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Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
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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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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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
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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Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
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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Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Abraham Cowley
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Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
Abraham Cowley
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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.
Abraham Cowley
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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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When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
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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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley
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Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
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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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
Abraham Cowley