Best 311 quotes of William Cowper on MyQuotes

His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.

How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.

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

How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

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!

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.

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.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.

I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

I am out of humanity's reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.

I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.

If a great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little man that despises them is no contemptible one.

If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in.

If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.

I have a kitten,the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin.

In man or woman, but far most in man, And most of all in man that ministers, And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn: Object of my implacable disgust.

In the vast, and the minute, we see The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.

I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, OF needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?

Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.

I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.

It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.

It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.

It is a terrible thought, that nothing is ever forgotten; that not an oath is ever uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all times, in the wide spreading current of sound; that not a prayer is lisped, that its record is not to be found st

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.

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.

I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.

I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

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.

Lights of the world, and stars of human race.

Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kiss'd his horse.

Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint; Yet I love thee and adore, Oh for grace to love thee more!

Made poetry a mere mechanic art.

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.

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

Mansions once Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds, That had surviv'd the father, serv'd the son. Now the legitimate and rightful lord Is but a transient guest, newly arrived, And soon to be supplanted. He that saw His patrimonial timber cast its leaf, Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price To some shrewd sharper ere it buds again. Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile, Then advertised and auctioneer'd away.

Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost.

Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.

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.