William Cowper Quotes

309 Sourced Quotes

They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.

William Cowper
Two goldfinches, whose sprightly song Had been their mutual solace long, Lived happy prisoners there.

William Cowper
Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid,
In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.

William Cowper
How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!

William Cowper
What we admire we praise; and when we praise,
Advance it into notice, that its worth
Acknowledged, others may admire it too.

William Cowper
And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?

William Cowper
Could he with reason murmur at his case, Himself sole author of his own disgrace?

William Cowper
Oh, popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;
But swell'd into a gust--who then, alas!
With all his canvas set, and inexpert,
And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power?

William Cowper
Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.

William Cowper
Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.

William Cowper
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade.

William Cowper
There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.

William Cowper
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.

William Cowper
Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
Force many a shining youth into the shade,
Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
Call'd to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home; He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.

William Cowper
Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.

William Cowper
Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.

William Cowper
Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd,
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

William Cowper
But 'tis not timber, lead and stone, An architect requires alone, To finish a fine building — The palace were but half complete, If he could possibly forget The carving and the gilding.

William Cowper
E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream
thy flowing wounds supply,
redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die.

William Cowper
They love the country, and none else, who seek
For their own sake its silence and its shade.
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind
Cultured and capable of sober thought.

William Cowper
As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

William Cowper
How! leap into the pit our life to save?
To save our life leap all into the grave.

William Cowper