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William Cowper Quotes
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William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem Yardley-Oak.After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation. He recovered and wrote more religious hymns.

His religious sentiment and association with John Newton led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. His poem "Light Shining out of Darkness" gave English the phrase: "God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform."

He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems and his friendship with Newton, who was an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper being asked to write in support of the Abolitionist campaign. Cowper wrote a poem called "The Negro's Complaint" which rapidly became very famous, and was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 20th century civil rights movement. He also wrote several other less well known poems on slavery in the 1780s, many of which attacked the idea that slavery was economically viable. Wikipedia  

✵ 26. November 1731 – 25. April 1800
William Cowper photo
William Cowper: 174   quotes 8   likes

William Cowper Quotes

“I would not enter on my list of friends,
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 560.

Sense

“Which not even critics criticise.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 51.

“I praise the Frenchman [Voltaire], his remark was shrewd —
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 739.

Solitude

“Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
A fool must now and then be right by chance.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 96.

Fools , Chance , Falseness

“Made poetry a mere mechanic art.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 654.

Art

“With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 217.

Heart

“So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employed too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!”

William Cowper

Source: The Yardley Oak (1791), Lines 29-32

Life , Pleasure , Dreams , Search

“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.”

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 5.

Solitude

“In indolent vacuity of thought.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 297.

“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.”

William Cowper

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

“From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 188.

Drawing

“A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 193.

“Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.”

William Cowper

"The Needless Alarm, Moral" (1794).

“All learned, and all drunk!”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 478.

Learning

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

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 28.

“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 285.

Pain , Pleasure

“The son of parents pass'd into the skies.”

William Cowper

On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Parent

“While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 118.

Home

“Now let us sing — Long live the king,
And Gilpin, long live he;
And, when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!”

William Cowper

St. 63.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

Singing

“He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 733.

Truth

“Forced from home and all its pleasures
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.”

William Cowper

Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 1-8

Men , Pleasure , Home , Rage

“Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 260.

Freedom

“How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!”

William Cowper

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 415.

Home

“T is Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.”

William Cowper

A Fable, Moral.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Change

“No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.”

William Cowper

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 470.

“The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 299.

Fools

“It seems the part of wisdom.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 336.

Wisdom , Parting

“He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says—what says he?—Caw.”

William Cowper

The Jackdaw (translation from Vincent Bourne).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Law , Business

“A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.”

William Cowper

Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Youth , Age

“That good diffused may more abundant grow.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 443.

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

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 303.

Home

“Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!”

William Cowper

Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 55-56

Feeling , Question

“Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 363.

Art , Cheating

“Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.”

William Cowper

On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life

“Though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.”

William Cowper

St. 8.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

Pleasure

“Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”

William Cowper

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

Smile

“But strive still to be a man before your mother.”

William Cowper

Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 231.

“But Conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 703.

Religion , Way , Water , Summer

“United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 77.

“And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.”

William Cowper

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

Smile , Tear

“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.”

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 9.

Music

“As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks
The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.”

William Cowper

The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book VIII, line 643.

Mountain , Star , Heart

“Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.”

William Cowper

"From a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Newton", line 21. (1782).

“Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.”

William Cowper

"Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile", line 35.

Sad , Missing You , Goodbye , Love

“Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 623.

“So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
All healthful, are the employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time,
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 624.

Life , Health , Time

“I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.”

William Cowper

Pairing Time Anticipated.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Bird

“Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heav'nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!”

William Cowper

No. 1, "Walking With God".
Olney Hymns (1779)

God , Light