“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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last." by William Cowper?

William Cowper 174

(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800

Related quotes

“I sought not in her visage, for the tinge of the morning, and the lustre of heaven. These had vanished with life; but I hoped for liberty to print a last kiss upon her lips. This was denied me; for such had been the merciless blow that destroyed her, that not a lineament remained!”

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) American novelist, historian and editor

Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)

“I sing in the language of the Heart. It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.”

Lisa Gerrard (1961) Australian musician, singer and composer

“Give me a baptism of glowing love,
Thy power and presence wheresoe'er I rove;
And my last prayer, all other prayers above —
Oh, give to me
More of Thyself, Lord Jesus: more of Thee!”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

“Oh no! we never mention her,
Her name is never heard;
My lips are now forbid to speak
That once familiar word.”

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) English poet, songwriter, dramatist, and writer

Oh no! we never mention her, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Variant: "Oh, no, we never mention him".
Psychæ; or, Songs on butterflies &c http://books.google.com/books?id=M2IIAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Oh+no+we+never+mention+her+Her+name+is+never+heard+My+lips+are+now+forbid+to+speak+That+once+familiar+word%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage (1828).

“Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

V, 6
Variation on the middle sentence: A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
Variation on the middle sentence: A thing is not necessarily false because it is badly expressed, nor true because it is expressed magnificently.
Confessions (c. 397)
Context: Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish.

“You must have heard that last autumn I almost got married, but I am glad I realized in time that it had been an illusion, all those beautiful things. Although I have always lived for art, I am also attracted to the beautiful in life and so I sometimes do things that seem strange for me.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in an undated letter to Alleta de Jongh, Paris, c. Spring 1912; as cited in Mondrian, - The Art of Destruction, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 243, note 61
1910's