Quote

If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in.

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
Way
Canvas
Display
Propitious
Fill
Hindrances
Fortune
Obstruct
Strength
Magnanimity
Seen
Gale
Half
Hindrance
Take
Sail

More quotes by William Cowper

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God made the country, and man made the town.
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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
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How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.
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All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.
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Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
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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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And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast) / The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
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As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
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Where penury is felt the thought is chain'd, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.
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There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart he does not feel for man.
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Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired.
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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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The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow.
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Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break, With blessings on your head
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There is a mixture of evil in everything we do indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.
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But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.
William Cowper
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Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
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.
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Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
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Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
William Cowper