William Cowper: Trending quotes

William Cowper trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
William Cowper: 348 quotes8 likes

“But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 187.

“Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 588.

“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”

William Cowper

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)

“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.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 29.

“Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.”

William Cowper The Task

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.”

William Cowper

"Tirocinium", line 79 (1785).

“For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.”

William Cowper

The Retired Cat.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 1.

“Deem our nation brutes no longer,
Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the colour of our kind.”

William Cowper

Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 49-52

“God made the country, and man made the town.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 749.

“His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.”

William Cowper

No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)

“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.”

William Cowper

The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface.

“The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”

William Cowper

A misquotation of "The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow", from James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover (1827), ch. 23.
Misattributed

“Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 691.

“Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.”

William Cowper The Task

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.”

William Cowper

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.”

William Cowper

"Epistle to Joseph Hill", line 62 (1785).

“Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”

William Cowper

Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 13-16

“The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.”

William Cowper

On Friendship.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 352.