William Cowper was an English poet of the 18th century. He is best known for his lyric poetry and the poem The Task. His work is often associated with the Romantic period, although his poetry was highly influenced by his personal struggles with mental illness.
What is the most famous quote by William Cowper ?
An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.
— William Cowper
What can you learn from William Cowper (Life Lessons)
- William Cowper taught that life is full of suffering and sorrow, but that it is possible to find joy and solace in the beauty of nature and the love of God.
- He also believed that it is important to be kind and generous to others, and to always strive to do what is right and just.
- Finally, Cowper believed that it is essential to have faith in God and to have patience, as He will ultimately provide us with the strength and courage to overcome any obstacle.
The most reckoning William Cowper quotes that are little-known but priceless
Following is a list of the best William Cowper quotes, including various William Cowper inspirational quotes, and other famous sayings by William Cowper.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys: Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
Grief is itself a medicine.
How various his employments whom the world Calls idle;
and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
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.
...So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?
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?
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.
Inspiring quotes by William Cowper
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
The darkest day, If you live till tomorrow will have past away.
Quotations by William Cowper that are melancholic and refreshing
Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.
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.
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.
Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.
They fix attention, heedless of your pain, With oaths like rivets forced into the brain; And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.
Remorse begets reform.
Heaven's harmony is universal love.
The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
God made the country, and man made the town.
A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing.
Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.
Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; Wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
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.
The life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
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.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.
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.
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.
War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.
Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
Admirals extolled for standing still, or doing nothing with a deal of skill.
Blest be the art that can immortalize,--the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim to quench it.
No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
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.
Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.