William Cowper Quotes

309 Sourced Quotes

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
Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.

William Cowper
And in that hour,
The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth,
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints.

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
When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.

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
The fall of waters and the song of birds,
And hills that echo to the distant berds,
Are luxuries excelling all the glare
The world can boast, and her chief favorites share.

William Cowper
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.

William Cowper
I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.

William Cowper
Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.

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

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

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

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

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

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