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Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

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
Eyes
Manuscripts
Eye
Printing
Art
Gallery
Cheat
Print
Zigzag
Arts
Cheats
Critics
Manuscript
Thousand
Transforms

More quotes by 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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In the vast, and the minute, we see The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.
William Cowper
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The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.
William Cowper
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The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
William Cowper
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When scandal has new-minted an old lie, Or tax'd invention for a fresh supply, 'Tis call'd a satire, and the world appears Gathering around it with erected ears A thousand names are toss'd into the crowd, Some whisper'd softly, and some twang'd aloud, Just as the sapience of an author's brain, Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain.
William Cowper
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The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.
William Cowper
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As if the world and they were hand and glove.
William Cowper
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Absence of occupation is not rest A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
William Cowper
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A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
William Cowper
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Call'd to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
William Cowper
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Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
William Cowper
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No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
William Cowper
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The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.
William Cowper
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A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
William Cowper
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Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.
William Cowper
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Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought, attain not to the dignity of thought.
William Cowper
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Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.
William Cowper
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O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
William Cowper
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Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life.
William Cowper
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There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
William Cowper