Quote

If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.

William Cowper

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Cowper
Age: 68 †
Born: 1731
Born: November 26
Died: 1800
Died: April 25
Hymnwriter
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Translator
Writer
Berkhamsted
Hertfordshire
Littles
Little
Great
Despise
Men
Resolution
Shame
Attitude
Half
Strong

More quotes by William Cowper

Image
I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
William Cowper
Image
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
William Cowper
Image
I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.
William Cowper
Image
The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.
William Cowper
Image
What we admire we praise and when we praise, Advance it into notice, that its worth Acknowledged, others may admire it too.
William Cowper
Image
O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
William Cowper
Image
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.
William Cowper
Image
True modesty is a discerning grace And only blushes in the proper place But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear, Where 'tis a shame to be asham'd t' appear: Humility the parent of the first, The last by vanity produc'd and nurs'd.
William Cowper
Image
There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
William Cowper
Image
Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart To modest cheeks, and borrowed one from art.
William Cowper
Image
How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.
William Cowper
Image
The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive.
William Cowper
Image
[My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
William Cowper
Image
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
William Cowper
Image
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.
William Cowper
Image
We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.
William Cowper
Image
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
William Cowper
Image
Go, mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
William Cowper
Image
Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
William Cowper
Image
Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
William Cowper