Quote

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys, Unfriendly to society's chief joys: Thy worst effect is banishing for hours The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

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
Society
Fair
Joys
Effect
Scent
Sex
Annoying
Whose
Weed
Effects
Chief
Banishing
Joy
Chiefs
Annoys
Worst
Fairs
Unfriendly
Hours
Presence
Pernicious

More quotes by William Cowper

Image
An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
William Cowper
Image
All truth is precious, if not all divine and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
William Cowper
Image
Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.
William Cowper
Image
A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.
William Cowper
Image
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.
William Cowper
Image
No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
William Cowper
Image
Most satirists are indeed a public scourge Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.
William Cowper
Image
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, Delightful industry enjoy'd at home, An Nature, in her cultivated trim Dress'ed to his taste, inviting him abroad - Can he want occupation who has these?
William Cowper
Image
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.
William Cowper
Image
The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow, and when we lie down at night we may safely say to most of our troubles, Ye have done your worst, and we shall see you no more.
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
My soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
William Cowper
Image
Built God a church and laughed His word to scorn.
William Cowper
Image
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
William Cowper
Image
I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
William Cowper
Image
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.
William Cowper
Image
Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!
William Cowper
Image
The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.
William Cowper
Image
Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
William Cowper
Image
Spare feast! a radish and an egg.
William Cowper