William Cowper Quotes
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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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Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
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The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.
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There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.
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How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet; now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.
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Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
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Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life.
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England with all thy faults, I love thee still-- My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.
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We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, and keeps our larder lean.
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The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
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Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
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In a fleshly tomb, I am buried above ground.
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That good diffused may more abundant grow.
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And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast) / The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
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To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
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The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.
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Man in society is like a flow'r, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use.
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Blest be the art that can immortalize.
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Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others' bare.
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Dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed. . . . When I can find no other occupation, I think; and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.
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Hast thou not learnd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lords?
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All we behold is miracle.
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Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.