William Cowper: Man

William Cowper was (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist. Explore interesting quotes on man.
William Cowper: 348   quotes 8   likes

“The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 506.

Change

“There is mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace
And reconciles man to his lot.”

William Cowper

Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 53.

Affliction

“Reasoning at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom instinct leads,
Are rarely known to stray.”

William Cowper

"The Doves", line 1. (1780).

Way

“Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 235.

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

William Cowper The Task

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

God , Country

“An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.”

William Cowper

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

Heart

“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)

Sense

“O Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 481.

Heart

“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

“But many a crime deem'd innocent on earth
Is register'd in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 439.

God , Heart

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

William Cowper

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 193.

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

William Cowper

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

William Cowper

Letter to John Newton, (17 June 1783).

“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