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William Cowper Quotes

1731–1800 England

William Cowper (26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and hymnodist.

England
Hymnwriters
Poets
Translators

Also known as: Cowper, William

Random William Cowper quote

289 quotes

Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.

Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.

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

The Task (1785)

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.

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)

No dancing bear was so genteel
Or half so dégagé.

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)

Man disobeys, and deity disowns me.

Heaven's harmony is universal love.

A hat not much the worse for wear.

The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.

Conversation (1782)

Such stuff the world is made of.

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
Force many a shining youth into the shade,
Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon;
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects
Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

The Progress of Error (1782)

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.

Conversation (1782)

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)

Attribution

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