William Cowper Quotes
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As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
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How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
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Remorse begets reform.
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Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
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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.
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When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.
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A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.
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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.
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O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!
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Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
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A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
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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.
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And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?
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Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
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Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
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She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming.
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Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
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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.
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England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!
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Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
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Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.
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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.
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I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?
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We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too.