William Cowper Quotes

309 Sourced Quotes

He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.

William Cowper
To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
And hear His pardoning voice
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.

William Cowper
But poverty, with most who whimper forth
Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe;
The effect of laziness, or sottish write.

William Cowper
All affectation; 'tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.

William Cowper
Learning itself, received into a mind
By nature weak, or viciously inclined,
Serves but to lead philosophers astray,
Where children would with ease discern the way.

William Cowper
All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.

William Cowper
Pity! Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray
And every muse attend her in her way.

William Cowper
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

William Cowper
Sacred interpreter of human thought,
How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of every wrong,
Who dare dishonor or defile the tongue;
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or sell their glory at a market-price!

William Cowper
No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.

William Cowper
Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

William Cowper
A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair;
Honesty shines with great advantage there.

William Cowper
All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.

William Cowper
Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired.

William Cowper
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!

William Cowper
Thieves at home must hang; but he that puts Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
Scenes must be beautiful which daily view'd
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.

William Cowper
My soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

William Cowper
Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.

William Cowper
Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.

William Cowper
When scandal has new-minted an old lie,
Or tax'd invention for a fresh supply,
'Tis call'd a satire, and the world appears
Gathering around it with erected ears;
A thousand names are toss'd into the crowd,
Some whisper'd softly, and some twang'd aloud,
Just as the sapience of an author's brain,
Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain.

William Cowper
A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.

William Cowper
Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought, attain not to the dignity of thought.

William Cowper
The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read; and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.

William Cowper
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

William Cowper
Come, evening, once again, season of peace;
Return, sweet evening, and continue long!
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,
With matron step, slow moving, while the night
Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd
In letting fall the curtain of repose
On bird and beast, the other charged for man
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day.

William Cowper
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears;
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.

William Cowper