William Cowper Quotes & Sayings

Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history. — William Cowper

To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

It is a terrible thought, that nothing is ever forgotten; that not an oath is ever uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all times, in the wide spreading current of sound; that not a prayer is lisped, that its record is not to be found st — William Cowper

No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed. — William Cowper

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

Poor England! thou art a devoted deer,
Beset with every ill but that of fear.
The nations hunt; all mock thee for a prey;
They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay. — William Cowper

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

A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about. — William Cowper

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew. — William Cowper

The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue. — William Cowper

Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,
all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love. — William Cowper

Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt. — William Cowper

The few that pray at all pray oft amiss. — William Cowper

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe. — 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

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

Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor; And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away. — William Cowper

Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

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

Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

Spare feast! a radish and an egg. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

Unmissed but by his dogs and by his groom. — 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

Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die — William Cowper

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me;
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.
Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers,
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.
Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgement, in a fleshy tomb, am
Buried above ground. — William Cowper

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides. — William Cowper

Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. — William Cowper

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. — William Cowper

Their tameness is shocking to me. — 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

True modesty is a discerning grace
And only blushes in the proper place;
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear,
Where 'tis a shame to be asham'd t' appear:
Humility the parent of the first,
The last by vanity produc'd and nurs'd. — William Cowper

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? — William Cowper

The still small voice is wanted. — William Cowper

Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate. — William Cowper

A Christian's wit is offensive light,
A beam that aids, but never grieves the sight;
Vig'rous in age as in the flush of youth,
'Tis always active on the side of truth. — William Cowper

Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. — William Cowper

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

There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

[My kitten's] gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible, if they could. — William Cowper

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke. — William Cowper

Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain. — William Cowper

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful industry enjoy'd at home,
An Nature, in her cultivated trim
Dress'ed to his taste, inviting him abroad -
Can he want occupation who has these? — William Cowper

But it is a sort of April-weather life that we lead in this world. A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm. — 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

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

Folly ends where genuine hope begins. — William Cowper

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world. — William Cowper

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

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! — William Cowper

When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins. — William Cowper

Religion, richest favor of the skies. — William Cowper

When scandal has new-minted an old lie,
Or tax'd invention for a fresh supply,
'Tis call'd a satire, and the world appears
Gathering around it with erected ears;
A thousand names are toss'd into the crowd,
Some whisper'd softly, and some twang'd aloud,
Just as the sapience of an author's brain,
Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain. — William Cowper

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame. — William Cowper

And diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where. — William Cowper

Some people are more nice than wise. — William Cowper

A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair;
Honesty shines with great advantage there. — William Cowper

To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
And hear His pardoning voice
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice. — William Cowper

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. — William Cowper

Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. — William Cowper

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows not more. — William Cowper

And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast) / The lie that flatters I abhor the most. — William Cowper

Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men; wisdom in minds attentive to their own. — William Cowper

So let us welcome peaceful evening in. — William Cowper

No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach. — William Cowper

Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time. — William Cowper

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it. — 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

Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kiss'd his horse. — William Cowper

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. — William Cowper

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
And having lived a trifler, die a man. — William Cowper

Happy the bard, (if that fair name belong
To him that blends no fable with his song)
Whose lines uniting, by an honest art,
The faithful monitors and poets part,
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind,
And while they captivate, inform the mind.
Still happier, if he till a thankful soil,
And fruit reward his honorable toil:
But happier far who comfort those that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallow'd gate — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours. — William Cowper

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

But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown! — William Cowper

All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine. — William Cowper

Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

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

As if the world and they were hand and glove. — William Cowper

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

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year! — William Cowper

The proud are ever most provoked by pride. — William Cowper

Scenes must be beautiful which daily view'd
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years. — William Cowper

Heaven speed the canvas, gallantly unfurl'd, To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the Pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into one. — William Cowper

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

Toil for the brave! The brave that are no more. — William Cowper

Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive. — William Cowper

All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil. — William Cowper

This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears,
Built as it has been in our waning years,
A rest afforded to our weary feet,
Preliminary to - the last retreat. — 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

Learning itself, received into a mind
By nature weak, or viciously inclined,
Serves but to lead philosophers astray,
Where children would with ease discern the way. — William Cowper

The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth. — William Cowper