Quotes from The Task — William Cowper
1731–1800 England
← All quotes by William Cowper
77 quotes
Our love is principle, and has its root
In reason, is judicious, manly, free.
Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time,
Not to be pass'd.
Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.
Me therefore studious of laborious ease.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
Attribution
Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Cowper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.