Quote

The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

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
Relaxing
Give
Style
Managed
Wells
Turn
Wit
Well
Sort
Classic
Giving
Sports
Sport
Mind
Wisdom
Smile
Abler
Make
Reading
Writers
Lustre
Turns
Needful
Truth
Whose

More quotes by William Cowper

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The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive.
William Cowper
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An idler is a watch that wants both hands As useless if it goes as when it stands.
William Cowper
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I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.
William Cowper
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Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
William Cowper
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Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.
William Cowper
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Slaves cannot breathe in England if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
William Cowper
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When nations are to perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins.
William Cowper
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Blest be the art that can immortalize,--the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim to quench it.
William Cowper
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For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it comes to light, In every cranny but the right.
William Cowper
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How various his employments whom the world Calls idle and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!
William Cowper
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Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world to see the stir Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
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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All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil.
William Cowper
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No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.
William Cowper
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The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
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 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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A fretful temper will divide the closest knot that may be tied, by ceaseless sharp corrosion a temper passionate and fierce may suddenly your joys disperse at one immense explosion.
William Cowper