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Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.

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
Truth
Charms
Fables
Slight
Truest
Charm
Fiction
Teach
Lying
Poesy

More quotes by 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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Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
Abraham Cowley
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Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.
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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Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!
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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Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.
Abraham Cowley
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Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
Abraham Cowley
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Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
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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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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Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
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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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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What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
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
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The world's a scene of changes.
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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Hope! fortune's cheating lottery when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
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