Cowley Quotes & Sayings

Our yesterday's to-morrow now is gone,
And still a new to-morrow does come on.
We by to-morrow draw out all our store,
Till the exhausted well can yield no more. — Abraham Cowley

This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our Dwelling-Place:
We call one Step a Race:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who Live, and know what 'tis to Be,
Who all the nonsense of our language see
Who speak things, and our words, their ill-drawn pictures, scorn,
When we, by a foolish figure, say,
Behold an old man dead! then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born! — Abraham Cowley

No matter what you do, if your heart is ever true,
And his heart was true to Poll. — Francis Cowley Burnand

Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise. — Abraham Cowley

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

And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets militant below. — Abraham Cowley

Ah yet, ere I descend to the grave, May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, and many books, both true, both wise and both delightful too.
— Abraham Cowley

Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make. — Abraham Cowley

Be kind and considerate with your criticism ... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book. — Malcolm Cowley

A man rising in the world is not concerned with history; he is too busy making it. But a citizen with a fixed place in the community wants to acquire a glorious past just as he acquires antique furniture. By that past he is reassured of his present importance; in it he finds strength to face the dangers that lie in front of him. — Malcolm Cowley

The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood. — Malcolm Cowley

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

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

There are two kinds of movement; one belonging to the inner body and the other to the outer body. The movement of the inner body is causal, but the outer movement is under compulsion. The inner movement determines the outer which is joined to it and causes outer actions to develop from these inner actions. Inner movement is the force by which all events all brought to pass. Outer movement is subject to this inner force.[17] — Louise Cowley

I have frequently noticed in myself a tendency to a diffuse style; a disposition to push my metaphors too far, employing a multitude of words to heighten the patness of the image, and so making of it a conceit rather than a metaphor, a fault copiously illustrated in the poetry of Cowley, Waller, Donne, and others of that ilk. — Sidney Lanier

If I see someone down, I'll try to give him a good laugh. — Joe Cowley

The monster London laugh at me. — Abraham Cowley

Ere I descend to th' grave,
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books. — Abraham Cowley

The present is all the ready money Fate can give. — Abraham Cowley

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

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities! — Abraham Cowley

The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey. — Abraham Cowley

Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be! — Abraham Cowley

Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company. — Abraham Cowley

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. — Abraham Cowley

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

Water and air He for the Tenor chose,
Earth made the Base, the Treble Fame arose,
To th' active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave,
To Saturn's string a touch more sore and grave.
The motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow,
And short and long, were mixt and woven so,
Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall,
As made this decent measur'd dance of all.
And this is Musick. — Abraham Cowley

The charms of women were never more powerful never inspired such achievements, as in those immortal periods, when they could neither read nor write. — Hannah Cowley

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse. — Jack Kerouac

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much. — Malcolm Cowley

I learned from her that the people who said you only live once were not readers. As often as you open a book, you come to new places and live new lives. — Joy Cowley

Showing up to games year after year, no matter what the product on the field gives you back, is a learned behavior - sort of like rats in a maze searching for cheese. The rat learns the maze, learns where the cheese is placed and eventually goes to it without thought, even when the cheese is taken away. The rat doesn't know anything else. — Joe Cowley

There would seem to be four stages in the composition of a story. First comes the germ of the story, then a period of more or less conscious meditation, then the first draft, and finally the revision, which may be simply 'pencil work' as John O'Hara calls it - that is, minor changes in wording - or may lead to writing several drafts and what amounts to a new work. — Malcolm Cowley

It would have been the equivalent of Jackson Pollock's attempts to copy the Sistine Chapel. — Malcolm Cowley

Everywhere was the atmosphere of a long debauch that had to end; the orchestras played too fast, the stakes were too high at the gambling tables, the players were so empty, so tired, secretly hoping to vanish together into sleep and ... maybe wake on a very distant morning and hear nothing, whatever, no shouting or crooning, find all things changed. — Malcolm Cowley

PROFESSOR EMERITUS WOTAN Ulm, of the University of Oxford East 5, author of the bestselling if controversial memoir Peer Reviewers and Other Idiots: A Life In Academia, had consented to give a recorded lecture on von Neumann replicators to be carried as briefing material on the US Navy twain USS Brian Cowley. — Terry Pratchett

Going back to Hemingway's work after several years is like going back to a brook where you had often fished and finding the woods as deep and cool as they used to be. — Malcolm Cowley

I never cease to be amazed why some of my friends became famous and others, just as talented, didn't. I've come to suspect it's a matter of wanting fame or not, and those who don't want it, don't get it. — Malcolm Cowley

Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion. — Abraham Cowley

Much will always wanting be
To him who much desires. — Abraham Cowley

The present is an eternal now. — Abraham Cowley

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

All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy! — Abraham Cowley

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

She rested her head on Esther's shoulder and let the fuzzy warmth of her hug flow through her. It was the kind of warmth that clicked your bones back into place, smoothed out your muscles and made your blood sing a soft lullaby all the way around your body. — Joy Cowley

Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind. — Abraham Cowley

They were learning that New York had another life, too - subterranean, like almost everything that was human in the city - a life of writers meeting in restaurants at lunchtime or in coffee houses after business hours to talk of work just started or magazines unpublished, and even to lay modest plans for the future. Modestly they were beginning to write poems worth the trouble of reading to their friends over coffee cups. Modestly they were rebelling once more. — Malcolm Cowley

Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self's thy Ganymede. — Abraham Cowley

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

But you drank your black coffee by choice, believeng that Paris was sufficient alcohol. — Malcolm Cowley

For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room. — Abraham Cowley

First New York was a sort of provincial capital, bigger and richer than Manchester or Marseilles, but not much different in its essential spirit. Then, after the war, it became one among half a dozen world cities. Today it has the appearance of standing alone, as the center of culture in the part of the world that still tries to be civilized. — Malcolm Cowley

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

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

Life is an incurable disease. — Abraham Cowley

See with the eyes of love and a thing becomes beautiful. See with the eyes of hate and things are ugly. — Joy Cowley

Even rats can only be kicked around for so long before they've had enough. — Joe Cowley

Awake, awake, my Lyre!And tell thy silent master's humble taleIn sounds that may prevail;Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. — Abraham Cowley

Who that has reason, and his smell,
Would not among roses and jasmin dwell? — Abraham Cowley

One great distinction, I appeared to myself to see plainly between even the characteristic faults of our elder poets, and the false beauty of the moderns. In the former, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most fantastic out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and genuine mother English, in the latter the most obvious thoughts, in language the most fantastic and arbitrary. Our faulty elder poets sacrificed the passion and passionate flow of poetry to the subtleties of intellect and to the stars of wit; the moderns to the glare and glitter of a perpetual, yet broken and heterogeneous imagery, or rather to an amphibious something, made up, half of image, and half of abstract meaning. The one sacrificed the heart to the head; the other both heart and head to point and drapery. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy. — Abraham Cowley

Neither the praise nor the blame is our own. — Abraham Cowley

Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live. — Abraham Cowley

May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true. — Abraham Cowley

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it. — Abraham Cowley

Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last. — Abraham Cowley

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

Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover? — Abraham Cowley

I'm a slow starter, but it's time to flip on the switch. — Joe Cowley

It requires genius to make a good pun - some men of bright parts can't reach it. — Hannah Cowley

Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's. — Abraham Cowley

I'm not the kind of guy who will pass someone without saying hello. If that's flaky, then I guess I'm flaky. — Joe Cowley

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right. — Abraham Cowley

A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain. — Abraham Cowley

Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends. — Abraham Cowley

Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on. — Abraham Cowley

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

No complete son of a bitch ever wrote a good sentence. — Malcolm Cowley

Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn't a story. — Malcolm Cowley

When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled. — Abraham Cowley

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings. — Abraham Cowley

This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high. — Abraham Cowley

I have a personality. The fans like a guy with personality. — Joe Cowley

The world's a scene of changes. — Abraham Cowley

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost. — Abraham Cowley

But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders. — Abraham Cowley

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

Richard Foster's excellent book Celebration of Discipline — Ian Cowley

Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you. — Malcolm Cowley

Put cotton in your ears and pebbles in your shoes. Pull on rubber gloves. Smear Vaseline over your glasses, and there you have it: instant old age. — Malcolm Cowley

Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. — Abraham Cowley

Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last. — Abraham Cowley

Plenty, as well as Want, can separate friends. — Abraham Cowley

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter. — Abraham Cowley

What if miliseconds influence centuries? — Robert Cowley

Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile. — Abraham Cowley

Milton had a highly imaginative, Cowley a very fanciful mind. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries. — Abraham Cowley

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

The tulip next appeared, all over gay, But wanton, full of pride, and full of play; The world can't show a dye but here has place; Nay, by new mixtures, she can change her face; Purple and gold are both beneath her care- The richest needlework she loves to wear; Her only study is to please the eye, And to outshine the rest in finery — Abraham Cowley