William Cowper quotes
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“Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.”
-- William Cowper -
“Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.”
-- William CowperSource : William Cowper, “The Task: Book Vi. -- The Winter Walk At Noon”
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“Grief is itself a medicine.”
-- William CowperSource : Charity
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“Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.”
-- William CowperSource : The Task bk. 2 "The Timepiece" l. 606 (1785) See Behn 1
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“How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.”
-- William Cowper -
“Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.”
-- William Cowper -
“Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.”
-- William Cowper -
“In a fleshly tomb, I am buried above ground.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.”
-- William Cowper -
“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.”
-- William Cowper -
“I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?”
-- William Cowper -
“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in”
-- William Cowper -
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“Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.”
-- William Cowper -
“The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.”
-- William CowperSource : William Cowper (1855). “The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems : Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence”, p.677
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“No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.”
-- William Cowper -
“How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.”
-- William Cowper -
“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.”
-- William CowperSource : William Cowper (1822). “The poems of William Cowper”, p.136
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“If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one...”
-- William Cowper -
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“This fond attachment to the well-known place Whence first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.”
-- William Cowper -
“The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.”
-- William CowperSource : William Cowper, D Macvean (1830). “Poems”, p.36
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“O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?”
-- William Cowper -
“The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.”
-- William Cowper -
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“The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.”
-- William Cowper -
“Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.”
-- William CowperSource : William Cowper, “Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer”
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“Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.”
-- William Cowper -
“Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.”
-- William Cowper -
“To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.”
-- William Cowper -
“Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.”
-- William Cowper -
“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Books are not seldom talismans and spells.”
-- William Cowper -
“The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”
-- William Cowper -
“I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.”
-- William Cowper -
“A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign.”
-- William Cowper -
“Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired.”
-- William Cowper -
“Hast thou not learnd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lords?”
-- William Cowper -
“Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.”
-- William Cowper -
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“The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.”
-- William Cowper -
“A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.”
-- William Cowper -
“Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.”
-- William Cowper -
“Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.”
-- William Cowper -
“And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.”
-- William Cowper -
“I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.”
-- William Cowper -
“When one that holds communion with the skies Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.”
-- William Cowper -
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“All affectation; 'tis my perfect scorn; Object of my implacable disgust.”
-- William Cowper -
“Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.”
-- William Cowper -
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“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”
-- William Cowper -
“Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.”
-- William Cowper -
“I am out of humanity's reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.”
-- William Cowper -
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“It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.”
-- William Cowper -
“There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.”
-- William Cowper -
“A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.”
-- William Cowper -
“Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.”
-- William Cowper -
“When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile”
-- William Cowper -
“The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”
-- William Cowper -
“Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.”
-- William Cowper -
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“The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read; and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.”
-- William Cowper -
“All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.”
-- William Cowper -
“How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.”
-- William Cowper -
“Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.”
-- William Cowper -
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“What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.”
-- William Cowper -
“Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry-- Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.”
-- William Cowper -
“For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it comes to light, In every cranny but the right.”
-- William Cowper -
“Philologists, who chase A painting syllable through time and space Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.”
-- William Cowper -
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“How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.”
-- William Cowper -
“Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.”
-- William Cowper -
“An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.”
-- William Cowper -
“How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!”
-- William Cowper -
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“An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live.”
-- William Cowper -
“Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.”
-- William Cowper -
“That good diffused may more abundant grow.”
-- William Cowper -
“The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.”
-- William Cowper -
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“If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in.”
-- William Cowper -
“Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.”
-- William Cowper -
“All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.”
-- William Cowper -
“Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade.”
-- William Cowper -
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“Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.”
-- William Cowper -
“The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.”
-- William Cowper -
“But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.”
-- William Cowper -
“Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.”
-- William Cowper -
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“God made bees, and bees made honey, God made man, and man made money, Pride made the devil, and the devil made sin; So God made a cole-pit to put the devil in.”
-- William Cowper -
“Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.”
-- William Cowper -
“There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.”
-- William Cowper -
“The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!”
-- William Cowper -
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“He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.”
-- William Cowper -
“I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.”
-- William Cowper -
“Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.”
-- William Cowper -
“Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.”
-- William Cowper -
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“They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.”
-- William Cowper -
“Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.”
-- William Cowper -
“Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.”
-- William Cowper -
“Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.”
-- William Cowper -
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