Quote

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

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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
Tree
Address
Shall
Addresses
Knowledge
Journalism
Evil
Presses
Speak
Press
Power
Thou
Good
Thee
Idolatry
Like
Dead
Eden

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How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.
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The only amarantine flower on earth Is virtue.
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Man on the dubious waves of error toss'd.
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The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.
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Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
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Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.
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Defend me, therefore, common sense, say From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.
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Philologists, who chase A painting syllable through time and space Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.
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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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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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Absence of occupation is not rest A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
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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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Could he with reason murmur at his case, Himself sole author of his own disgrace?
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They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labours of their own.
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When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow?
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He that runs may read.
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Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
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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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Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.
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The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
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