Cowper Quotes & Sayings

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

I am out of humanity's reach. — 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

They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own sake its silence and its shade.
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind
Cultured and capable of sober thought. — William Cowper

Words cannot be remote from reality when they create reality. — John Cowper Powys

But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he. — Virginia Woolf

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

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

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

The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight. — William Cowper

The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism. — John Cowper Powys

The meaning of culture is nothing less than the conduct of life itself, fortified, thickened, made more crafty and subtle, by contact with books and with art. — John Cowper Powys

What is the importance of human lives? Is it their continuing alive for so many years like animals in a menagerie? The value of a man cannot be judged by the number of diseases from which he escapes. The value of a man is in his human qualities: in his character, in his conscience, in the nobility and magnanimity, of his soul. Torturing animals to prolong human life has separated science from the most important thing that life has produced - the human conscience. — John Cowper Powys

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

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

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe. — William Cowper

Man is the animal who weeps and laughs - and writes. If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back - in a book. — John Cowper Powys

Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade. — William Cowper

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

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

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
Force many a shining youth into the shade,
Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate. — William Cowper

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

Built God a church and laughed His word to scorn. — William Cowper

When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow? — William Cowper

Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day. — William Cowper

Religion, richest favor of the skies. — William Cowper

In course of time the Brothers Cowper removed the manufacture of their printing machines from London, to Manchester. There they found skilled and energetic workmen, ready to carry their plans into effect. — James Nasmyth

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

War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at. — William Cowper

All we behold is miracle. — 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

In the vast, and the minute, we see
The unambiguous footsteps of the God,
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing
And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued. — William Cowper

An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting. — William Cowper

We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, and keeps our larder lean. — 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

Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray. — William Cowper

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more. — William Cowper

How! leap into the pit our life to save?
To save our life leap all into the grave. — William Cowper

Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart
To modest cheeks, and borrowed one from art. — William Cowper

Man on the dubious waves of error toss'd. — William Cowper

Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unseen, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss. — William Cowper

No traveler e'er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road. — 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 Cowper

Some people are more nice than wise. — 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

No, Freedom has a thousand charms to show
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. — William Cowper

One needs no strange spiritual faith to worship the earth. — John Cowper Powys

No refining of one's taste in matters of art or literature, no sharpening of one's powers of insight in matters of science or psychology, can ever take the place of one's sensitiveness to the life of the earth. This is the beginning and the end of a person's true education. — John Cowper Powys

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, ... I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know. — 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

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

Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless materials. — John Cowper Powys

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

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

In a fleshy tomb I am buried above ground. — William Cowper

The love that interferes and knows not how to leave alone is a love alien to Nature's ways. — John Cowper Powys

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit. — William Cowper

Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they. — 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

Man in society is like a flow'r,
Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone
His faculties expanded in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use. — William Cowper

[My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her. — William Cowper

Eternity for bubbles proves at last a senseless bargain. — William Cowper

To trace in Nature's most minute design The signature and stamp of power divine ... The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, To whom an atom is an ample field. — William Cowper

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

God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction. — William Cowper

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

A noisy man is always in the right. — William Cowper

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. — William Cowper

Back therefore we find ourselves returning. Back to the wisdom of the plough; back to the wisdom of those who follow the sea. It is all a matter of the wheel coming full-circle. For the sophisticated system of mental reactions to which we finally give our adherence is only the intellectualised reproduction of what more happily constituted natures, without knowing what they possess, possess. Thus between true philosophers and the true simple people there is a magnetic understanding; whereas, the clever ones whose bastard culture only divorces them from the wisdom of the earth remain pilloried and paralysed on the prongs of their own conceit. — John Cowper Powys

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

Still ending, and beginning still! — William Cowper

Pity! Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray
And every muse attend her in her way. — 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

Come, evening, once again, season of peace;
Return, sweet evening, and continue long!
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,
With matron step, slow moving, while the night
Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd
In letting fall the curtain of repose
On bird and beast, the other charged for man
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day. — William Cowper

The more money you give to people the better; and the less advice. — John Cowper Powys

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

Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases. — 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

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

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

Heaven's harmony is universal love. — William Cowper

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

Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid. — William Cowper

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

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

God moves in mysterious ways
His wonders to performs — 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

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more. — William Cowper

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

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. — 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

So let us welcome peaceful evening in. — William Cowper

Even in the stifling bosom of the town,
A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms
That soothes the rich possessor; much consol'd,
That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,
Or nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
He cultivates. — William Cowper

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