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Quotes from The Task — William Cowper

1731–1800 England

← All quotes by William Cowper

77 quotes

Popular Applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

The Task (1785)

An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path.
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will turn aside and let the reptile live.

The Task (1785)

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

The Task (1785)

Folly such as yours,
Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made what enemies could ne'er have done.

The Task (1785)

Silently as a dream the fabric rose;
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.

The Task (1785)

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.

The Task (1785)

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

The Task (1785)

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

The Task (1785)

His head,
Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.

The Task (1785)

Defend me, therefore, common sense, say
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.

The Task (1785)

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade;
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.

The Task (1785)

Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!

The Task (1785)

But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.

The Task (1785)

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

The Task (1785)

But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.

The Task (1785)

He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech.

The Task (1785)

The still small voice is wanted.

The Task (1785)

God never meant that man should scale the Heavens
By strides of human wisdom. In his works,
Though wondrous, he commands us in his word
To seek him rather where his mercy shines.

The Task (1785)

But who with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, My Father made them all.

The Task (1785)

With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

The Task (1785)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Cowper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.