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Admirals extolled for standing still, or doing nothing with a deal of skill.

William Cowper

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William Cowper
Age: 68 †
Born: 1731
Born: November 26
Died: 1800
Died: April 25
Hymnwriter
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Translator
Writer
Berkhamsted
Hertfordshire
Skills
Standing
Deal
Deals
War
Stills
Admirals
Still
Admiral
Nothing
Skill

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For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?
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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.
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An idler is a watch that wants both hands As useless if it goes as when it stands.
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Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.
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He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it has a mind That hungers, and supplies it and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business.
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When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.
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How various his employments whom the world Calls idle and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
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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.
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Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought, attain not to the dignity of thought.
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But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
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Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.
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Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
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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.
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The solemn fop significant and budge A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge
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How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.
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Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.
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Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
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Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilirate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.
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Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.
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Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
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