Quote

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

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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
Men
Prove
Pardon
Friend
Jack
Friends
Merit
Upon
Esteem
Hails
Back
Bear
Esteems
Need
Indeed
Hail
Needs
Bears
Proves
Much
Friendship
Toms

More quotes by William Cowper

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Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.
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But animated nature sweeter still, to soothe and satisfy the human ear.
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Laugh at all you trembled at before.
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Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
William Cowper
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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
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Man in society is like a flow'r, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use.
William Cowper
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Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
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The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.
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The few that pray at all pray oft amiss.
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How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave.
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Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
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They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
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How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!
William Cowper
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Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds A stream of liberal and heroic deeds The swell of pity, not to be confined Within the scanty limits of the mind.
William Cowper
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Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn, That he who made it, and reveal'd its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.
William Cowper
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God made bees, and bees made honey, God made man, and man made money, Pride made the devil, and the devil made sin So God made a cole-pit to put the devil in.
William Cowper
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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
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To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
William Cowper
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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.
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Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
William Cowper