Top 100 William Cowper Quotes
#1. 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
#2. The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge
William Cowper
#5. 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
#6. Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
William Cowper
#7. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; he does not feel for man.
William Cowper
#8. Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
William Cowper
#10. But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
William Cowper
#11. What is there in the vale of lifeHalf so delightful as a wife;When friendship, love and peace combineTo stamp the marriage-bond divine?
William Cowper
#12. Strength may wield the ponderous spade, May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home; But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, And most attractive, is the fair result Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.
William Cowper
#14. We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.
William Cowper
#16. Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.
William Cowper
#17. Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
William Cowper
#18. When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.
William Cowper
#21. 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
#22. 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
#24. 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
#25. Fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
William Cowper
#26. Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
William Cowper
#27. Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
William Cowper
#29. The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
William Cowper
#30. Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kiss'd his horse.
William Cowper
#31. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too.
William Cowper
#32. 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
#33. Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
William Cowper
#36. Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
William Cowper
#37. Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
William Cowper
#38. 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
#39. [My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
William Cowper
#40. 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
#41. Eternity for bubbles proves at last a senseless bargain.
William Cowper
#42. Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.
William Cowper
#43. 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 road
That leads me to the Lamb.
William Cowper
#44. Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.
William Cowper
#47. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
William Cowper
#48. 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
#49. Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons to love it, too.
William Cowper
#50. The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.
William Cowper
#51. All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
William Cowper
#52. 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
#53. Satan trembles, when he sees the weakest Saint upon his knees.
William Cowper
#54. 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.
William Cowper
#55. There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
William Cowper
#56. An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
William Cowper
#57. 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
#59. How! leap into the pit our life to save?
To save our life leap all into the grave.
William Cowper
#60. When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow?
William Cowper
#61. A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
William Cowper
#62. He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has no other views of the world than he had when he was much younger.
William Cowper
#63. The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.
William Cowper
#64. Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all it's flavour.
William Cowper
#65. Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
William Cowper
#66. 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.
William Cowper
#67. Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint; Yet I love thee and adore, Oh for grace to love thee more!
William Cowper
#68. If a great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little man that despises them is no contemptible one.
William Cowper
#69. My soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
William Cowper
#70. 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.
William Cowper
#71. It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
William Cowper
#72. 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
#73. 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
#74. All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.
William Cowper
#75. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows not more.
William Cowper
#76. Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
William Cowper
#77. 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.
William Cowper
#78. Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
William Cowper
#79. 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
#81. Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies ... To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
William Cowper
#82. Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life.
William Cowper
#83. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
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 ev'ning in.
William Cowper
#84. Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost.
William Cowper
#85. 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
#86. Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilirate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.
William Cowper
#87. 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
#88. There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.
William Cowper
#89. The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow, and when we lie down at night we may safely say to most of our troubles, "Ye have done your worst, and we shall see you no more."
William Cowper
#91. Where thou art gone, adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
William Cowper
#92. Dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed ... When I can find no other occupation, I think; and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.
William Cowper
#93. Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry
Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.
William Cowper
#94. Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
William Cowper
#95. Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.
William Cowper
#96. But animated nature sweeter still, to soothe and satisfy the human ear.
William Cowper
#97. Then to the dance, and make the sober moon ... witness of joys that shun the sights of noon.
William Cowper
#98. 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
#99. The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
William Cowper
#100. The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
William Cowper
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