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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

“And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world,—to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 86.

World , Feeling

“As if the world and they were hand and glove.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 173.

World

“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.”

William Cowper

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Light , Speed

“Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou was blind before:
Thine eye shall be instructed; and thine heart
Made pure shall relish with divine delight
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 779.

God , Heart

“Reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 411.

Reading

“There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.”

William Cowper

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

Bird

“Society friendship and love
Divinely bestow'd upon man,
O had I the wings of a dove
How soon I would taste you again!”

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 17.

Love , Friendship

“And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me is to be lovely still,
My Mary!”

William Cowper

"To Mary", st. 11 (1791).

Love , Age , Feeling

“Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 85.

Books , Learning , Heart

“My soul
Shall bear that also; for, by practice taught,
I have learned patience, having much endured.”

William Cowper

The Odyssey of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book V, line 264.

Soul , Learning , Patience

“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.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 347.

Men , Pain , Feeling

“I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 108.

“No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone;
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.”

William Cowper The Castaway

"The Castaway" (1799).

Light , Sea

“She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 642.

“Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 240.

Flowers

“No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.”

William Cowper

From the writings of William Cowper Brann (1855 – 1898), known as Brann the Iconoclast. http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=zc6W3a68NsoC&pg=PA60&dq=%22patriot+on+an+empty%22+inauthor:Brann&as_brr=0&sig=an5LOns0MG1gg4C2x7VNE1HdeuI
Misattributed

“Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 17.

Mountain

“Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 566.

Love

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

William Cowper

Truth, line 327.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth

“He that holds fast the golden mean, 22
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.”

William Cowper

Translation of Horace, book ii, Ode x.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Feeling

“His head,
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 702.

Youth , Strong , Time , Past

“Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.”

William Cowper

"A Fable" (or "The Raven"), line 36.

Fate

“I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 34.

Peace , Waiting

“Glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 1.

Selfishness

“An idler is a watch that wants both hands;
As useless when it goes as when it stands.”

William Cowper Retirement

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 681.

“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.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 251.

Sex , Joy

“But that disease when soberly defined
Is the false fire of an o'erheated mind.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 667; of fanaticism.

Disease , Falseness

“Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid.”

William Cowper

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 240.

Pleasure

“When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.”

William Cowper

Charity, line 435.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Angels , Water

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.”

William Cowper

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

God

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

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 1.

Sea

“Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,
An error soon corrected—
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears
Is most to be suspected?”

William Cowper

"Friendship", line 19 (1782).

Error , Boy , Learning , Appearance

“What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.”

William Cowper

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

World , Peace , Memory

“The sounding jargon of the schools.”

William Cowper

Truth, line 367.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

School

“Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;
Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.”

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 690.

Flowers , Nature , Dance

“And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.”

William Cowper

No. 29, "Exhortation to Prayer".
Olney Hymns (1779)

“Lights of the world, and stars of human race.”

William Cowper

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 97.

World , Star , Light

“Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 265.

Dreams

“Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 606.

Life

“A hat not much the worse for wear.”

William Cowper

St. 46.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

“I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.”

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 283.

“Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 444.

“True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.”

William Cowper

"Charity", line 573. (1781).

“I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.”

William Cowper

Letter to John Newton, (17 June 1783).

“Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!”

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 25.

Religion

“There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.”

William Cowper

On observing some Names of Little Note.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.”

William Cowper

"Human Frailty", line 21 (1779).

Distant

“Some must be great. 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 ordain'd to fill.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 788.

Life , God , Understanding

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

William Cowper

Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 542.

Sense

“The Frenchman's darling.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 765.