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The present is an eternal now.

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
Eternal
Present

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast.
Abraham Cowley
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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
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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The world's a scene of changes.
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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Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
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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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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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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Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise, He who defers this work from day to day, Does on a river's bank expecting stay, Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone, That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
Abraham Cowley
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Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live.
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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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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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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Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
Abraham Cowley
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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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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
Abraham Cowley
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The monster London laugh at me.
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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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