Works
Famous William Cowper Quotes
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 1.
“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 92.
Context: 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.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
“Silently as a dream the fabric rose —
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 144.
“He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 121.
William Cowper Quotes about God
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 439.
“As dreadful as the Manichean god,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 444.
The opening statement is often paraphrased: God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)
“Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 223.
William Cowper Quotes about time
“Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 514.
The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface.
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 88.
"Pairing Time Anticipated, Moral" (c. 1794).
Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).
William Cowper: Trending quotes
“Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway”
"Boadicea" (1782).
Context: "Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
"Boadicea" (1782).
Context: "Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 206.
William Cowper Quotes
“O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.”
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 37.
Context: My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
“It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity.”
Source: The Yardley Oak (1791), Lines 9-11
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 161.
"To a Young Lady" (1782).
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 127.
St. 28.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 506.
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 40.
“Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 510.
“What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 55.
“Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!”
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 41.
“Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 673.
“Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 905.
“A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.”
Source: Retirement (1782), Line 615.
“Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 357.
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 53.
Source: The Yardley Oak (1791), Lines 18-23
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 745.
“Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.”
Of fox-hunting.
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 326
“The still small voice is wanted.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 685.
“The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”
To an Afflicted Protestant Lady.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 235.
“Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.”
Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 246.
“But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 187.
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 29.
Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 181.
“Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a luster, he that runs may read.”
"Tirocinium", line 79 (1785).
The Retired Cat.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 1.
Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 49-52
No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)
“The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”
A misquotation of "The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow", from James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover (1827), ch. 23.
Misattributed
“Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.”
The Task, book vi. Winter Walk at Noon, line 101.
The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon
“A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.”
The Yearly Distress.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.”
"Epistle to Joseph Hill", line 62 (1785).
Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 13-16
On Friendship.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 352.
“Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.”
Actually the opening lines of Keats's "Fancy" (1820).
Misattributed
“O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 481.
No. 79, "Praise for the Fountain Opened".
Olney Hymns (1779)
“O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 120.
"On the Loss of the Royal George", st. 1 (1791).
“Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
that once lived here”
Source: The Yardley Oak (1791), Lines 1-2
