William Cowper Quotes
-
Toil for the brave! The brave that are no more.
-
I have a kitten,the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin.
-
Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
-
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.
-
[My kitten's] gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible, if they could.
-
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.
-
How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave.
-
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
-
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
-
No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
-
I was a poet too; but modern taste Is so refined and delicate and chaste, That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms, Without a creamy smoothness has no charms. Thus, all success depending on an ear, And thinking I might purchase it too dear, If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound, And truth cut short to make a period round, I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.
-
Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought, attain not to the dignity of thought.
-
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
-
A fool must now and then be right, by chance
-
All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
-
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
-
I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.
-
Mansions once Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds, That had surviv'd the father, serv'd the son. Now the legitimate and rightful lord Is but a transient guest, newly arrived, And soon to be supplanted. He that saw His patrimonial timber cast its leaf, Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price To some shrewd sharper ere it buds again. Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile, Then advertised and auctioneer'd away.
-
The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
-
O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
-
Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter; therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.
-
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.
-
The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
-
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.