William Cowper quotes:

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  • Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.

  • Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.

  • Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

  • Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

  • It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.

  • Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.

  • Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

  • O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.

  • Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.

  • The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

  • 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.

  • Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

  • A fool must now and then be right, by chance.

  • Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.

  • God made the country, and man made the town.

  • Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

  • A fool must now and then be right, by chance

  • Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

  • Defend me, therefore, common sense, say From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.

  • The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

  • Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.

  • Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

  • No one was ever scolded out of their sins.

  • A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.

  • I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, OF needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

  • Oh, popular applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales; But swell'd into a gust--who then, alas! With all his canvas set, and inexpert, And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power?

  • O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

  • Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

  • The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away."

  • O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place."

  • Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.

  • 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.

  • Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.

  • A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

  • The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

  • How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

  • Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.

  • With spots quadrangular of diamond form, ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, and spades, the emblems of untimely graves.

  • The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.

  • Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.

  • England with all thy faults, I love thee still-- My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.

  • Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.

  • Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

  • What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

  • God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

  • 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.

  • Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.

  • I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.

  • 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.

  • I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

  • Not a flower But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain, Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes In grains as countless as the seaside sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth Happy who walks with him!

  • Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

  • Great offices will have great talents.

  • Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.

  • Grief is itself a medicine.

  • But animated nature sweeter still, to soothe and satisfy the human ear.

  • ... no wisdom that [my kitten] may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will compensate for the loss of her present hilarity.

  • 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

  • They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.

  • An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.

  • How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!

  • Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

  • When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile

  • Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

  • Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!

  • It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.

  • I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?

  • Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.

  • 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.

  • But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

  • They fix attention, heedless of your pain, With oaths like rivets forced into the brain; And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.

  • Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.

  • 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.

  • And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?

  • 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.

  • The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears; These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

  • The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

  • There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.

  • He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not color'd like his own, and having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

  • 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.

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.

  • All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.

  • Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.

  • Go, mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower; Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell; Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

  • E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

  • Remorse begets reform.

  • An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting

  • Absence of occupation is not rest a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed

  • The dearest idol I have known,Whate'er that idol be,Help me to tear it from thy throne,And worship only thee.So shall my walk be close with God,Calm and serene my frame;So purer light shall mark the roadThat leads me to the Lamb.

  • God moves in mysterious waysHis wonders to performs

  • There is in souls a sympathy with sounds:And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleasedWith melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;Some chord in unison with what we hearIs touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

  • Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others' bare.

  • Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys: Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

  • A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.

  • A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.

  • The man to solitude accustom'd long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease, After long drought when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all.

  • Not to understand a treasure's worth till time has stole away the slighted good, is cause of half the poverty we feel, and makes the world the wilderness it is.

  • The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.

  • As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

  • No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.

  • Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.

  • Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

  • Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.

  • A fretful temper will divide the closest knot that may be tied, by ceaseless sharp corrosion; a temper passionate and fierce may suddenly your joys disperse at one immense explosion.

  • Call'd to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home; He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.

  • Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.

  • We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.

  • Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.

  • Heaven's harmony is universal love.

  • In indolent vacuity of thought.

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