Abraham Cowley
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.Collection: Knowledge
Life is an incurable disease.Collection: Life
For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.Collection: Home
Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Life
Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.Collection: Book
Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.Collection: Hopeless
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.Collection: Fate
Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.Collection: Hate
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.Collection: Encouragement
May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Dog
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.Collection: Country
Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.Collection: Lying
Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.Collection: Curiosity
The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.Collection: Journey
Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.Collection: Book
Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.Collection: Time
Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.Collection: Wine
Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.Collection: Running
Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.Collection: Lying
Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities!Collection: Life
I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast.Collection: House
Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends.Collection: Friends
His time's forever, everywhere his place.Collection: Time
Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!Collection: Hope
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.Collection: Garden
All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!Collection: World
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?Collection: Bible
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.Collection: Wise
The world's a scene of changes.Collection: World
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.Collection: Country
Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!Collection: Country
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!Collection: Brave
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.Collection: Men
Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.Collection: Appreciation
When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.Collection: Sea
Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?Collection: Lovers