William Cowper Quotes
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Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
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But poverty, with most who whimper forth Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe; The effect of laziness, or sottish write.
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Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
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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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Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.
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A life all turbulence and noise may seem To him that leads it wise and to be praised, But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still waters.
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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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Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
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The beggarly last doit.
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[My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
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Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.
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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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Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
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Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
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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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No wisdom that she may gain by experience and reflection hereafter, will compensate the loss of her present hilarity.
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The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
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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.
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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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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.
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A fool must now and then be right, by chance
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Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die
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Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies... To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
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How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave.