William Cowper Quotes
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Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilirate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.
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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.
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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.
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How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!
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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.
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What we admire we praise; and when we praise, Advance it into notice, that its worth Acknowledged, others may admire it too.
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And diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
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If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Laugh at all you trembled at before.
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Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break, With blessings on your head
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The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.
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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.
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Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
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When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile
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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.
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Great offices will have great talents.
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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.
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Where thou art gone, adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
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A teacher should be sparing of his smile.
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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.