Top 100 Cowper Quotes
#1. 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
#2. 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
#3. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
William Cowper
#4. 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 Cowper
#5. 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
#6. What would ever become of Tilly-Valley's religion in that world, with headlights flashing along cemented highways, and all existence dominated by electricity? What would become of old women reading by candlelight? What would become of his own life-illusion, his secret 'mythology,' in such a world?
John Cowper Powys
#7. 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
#8. Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.
John Cowper Powys
#9. The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear; And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive.
William Cowper
#10. 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
#11. He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper, who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks, by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for "another and a better world." No.
Samuel Johnson
#12. 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
#13. Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.
William Cowper
#14. 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
#15. I have a kitten,the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin.
William Cowper
#16. We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
William Cowper
#17. Thieves at home must hang; but he that puts Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
William Cowper
#18. The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge
William Cowper
#20. All affectation; 'tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
William Cowper
#23. 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
#24. We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, and keeps our larder lean.
William Cowper
#25. The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.
William Cowper
#26. War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
William Cowper
#27. Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
William Cowper
#28. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; he does not feel for man.
William Cowper
#30. Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
William Cowper
#31. 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.
William Cowper
#33. Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men; wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
William Cowper
#34. The trouble with Texas Baptists is that we do not hold them under water long enough.
William Cowper Brann
#35. But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
William Cowper
#36. 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
#37. 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
#38. Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die
William Cowper
#39. 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
#40. 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
#41. Some to the fascination of a name, Surrender judgment hoodwinked.
William Cowper
#43. 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
#44. Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
William Cowper
#45. 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
#46. Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
William Cowper
#47. Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.
William Cowper
#48. Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st tasteHis works. Admitted once to his embrace,Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before:Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heartMade pure shall relish with divine delightTill then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
William Cowper
#49. 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
#50. 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
#52. 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
#53. Misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
William Cowper
#54. 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
#55. What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
William Cowper
#56. Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor; And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
William Cowper
#57. Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.
William Cowper
#58. God never meant that man should scale the Heavens
By strides of human wisdom. In his works,
Though wondrous, he commands us in his word
To seek him rather where his mercy shines.
William Cowper
#59. Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
William Cowper
#60. The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.
William Cowper
#61. When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.
William Cowper
#62. Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade.
William Cowper
#64. All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.
William Cowper
#65. 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
#66. No traveler e'er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.
William Cowper
#67. Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!
William Cowper
#69. 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.
William Cowper
#71. Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.
William Cowper
#72. 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
#73. 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
#74. An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.
William Cowper
#75. It is that cricket field that, in all the sharp and bitter moments of life as they come to me now, gives me a sense of wholesome proportion: 'At least I am not playing cricket!
John Cowper Powys
#76. A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.
William Cowper
#77. But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.
William Cowper
#78. Men deal with life as children with their play,
Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
William Cowper
#79. 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.
William Cowper
#80. Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
William Cowper
#82. 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
#83. When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile
William Cowper
#84. 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.
William Cowper
#85. But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
William Cowper
#86. Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
William Cowper
#88. 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
#89. 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
#91. 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
#92. But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown!
William Cowper
#93. A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair;
Honesty shines with great advantage there.
William Cowper
#94. Fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
William Cowper
#95. Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.
William Cowper
#96. 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
#97. Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
William Cowper
#99. But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.
Virginia Woolf
#100. Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
William Cowper
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
