William Cowper Quotes
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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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To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach.
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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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Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
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Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
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The beggarly last doit.
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Poor England! thou art a devoted deer, Beset with every ill but that of fear. The nations hunt; all mock thee for a prey; They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay.
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The still small voice is wanted.
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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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Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
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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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Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
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They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
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God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to performs
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No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.
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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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Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.
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Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint; Yet I love thee and adore, Oh for grace to love thee more!
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But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world.
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The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge
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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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Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.
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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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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.