William Cowper Quotes
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The man to solitude accustom'd long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease, After long drought when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all.
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Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys: Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
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Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
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Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.
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No wisdom that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter, will compensate the loss of her present hilarity.
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Unmissed but by his dogs and by his groom.
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And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
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Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
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How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave.
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What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.
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Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.
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O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
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It is a terrible thought, that nothing is ever forgotten; that not an oath is ever uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all times, in the wide spreading current of sound; that not a prayer is lisped, that its record is not to be found st
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No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.
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Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
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An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
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Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
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Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.
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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.
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Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.
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A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
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A fool must now and then be right, by chance
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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.
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Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.