Quote

Thieves at home must hang but he that puts Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.

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
Home
Provinces
Must
Purses
Thieves
Puts
Hang
Corruption
Bloated
Indian
Escapes
Wealth
Purse

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If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.
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[My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
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Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hourThe bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
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England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!
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Come, evening, once again, season of peace Return, sweet evening, and continue long! Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, With matron step, slow moving, while the night Treads on thy sweeping train one hand employ'd In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charged for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day.
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A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.
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Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
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How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.
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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.
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Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die
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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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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
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The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
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Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint Yet I love thee and adore, Oh for grace to love thee more!
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Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
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To trace in Nature's most minute design The signature and stamp of power divine. ... The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, To whom an atom is an ample field.
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And in that hour, The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd To such gigantic and enormous growth, Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil. Hence date the persecution and the pain That man inflicts on all inferior kinds, Regardless of their plaints.
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Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry-- Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.
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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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Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined, Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern the way.
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