William Cowper Quotes
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But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease.
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A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
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All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.
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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.
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But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
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What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
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Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste His works. Admitted once to his embrace, Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before: Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart Made pure shall relish with divine delight Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
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Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.
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Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
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Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost.
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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.
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Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!
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A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
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Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
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Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.
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Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.
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How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
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It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
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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.
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A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well link'd; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows; and, new or old, still hasten to a close.
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Spare feast! a radish and an egg.
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O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.
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O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!