William Cowper Quotes
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Defend me, therefore, common sense, say From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.
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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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Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
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No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
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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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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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Man on the dubious waves of error toss'd.
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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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War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
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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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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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He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business.
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Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
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Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
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The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow, and when we lie down at night we may safely say to most of our troubles, "Ye have done your worst, and we shall see you no more."
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For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?
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The still small voice is wanted.
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Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
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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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Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.
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This fond attachment to the well-known place Whence first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.
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Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
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Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.
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There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.