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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
Books
Business
Death
Night
Light
Book
Entertain
Sleep

More quotes by 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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Life is an incurable disease.
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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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
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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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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Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
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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Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
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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All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
Abraham Cowley
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Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Abraham Cowley
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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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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The monster London laugh at me.
Abraham Cowley
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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
Abraham Cowley
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This only grant me, that my means may lie, too low for envy, for contempt to high.
Abraham Cowley
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What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!
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