William Cowper Quotes
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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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Some to the fascination of a name, Surrender judgment hoodwinked.
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Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.
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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.
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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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... she, that will with kittens jest, Should bear a kitten's joke.
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She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming.
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Grief is itself a medicine.
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It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
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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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But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown!
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They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.
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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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How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
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Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kiss'd his horse.
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No traveler e'er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.
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If a great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little man that despises them is no contemptible one.
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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.
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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.
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Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
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Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.
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Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry-- Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.
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All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.
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[My kitten's] gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible, if they could.