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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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Abraham Cowley
Age: 49 †
Born: 1618
Born: January 1
Died: 1667
Died: July 28
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
the City
Book
Entertain
Sleep
Books
Business
Death
Night
Light

More quotes by Abraham Cowley

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Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
Abraham Cowley
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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
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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.
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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
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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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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
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The present is an eternal now.
Abraham Cowley
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As for being much known by sight, and pointed out, I cannot comprehend the honor that lies withal whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor.
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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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Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Abraham Cowley
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The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
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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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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Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
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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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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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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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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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