Quote

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.

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
Stones
Feeds
Creeping
Sin
Rotten
Clings
Close
Defects
Ivy
Protect
Wood
Trunk
Upon
Ruin
Concealing
Ruins
Trunks
Stone
Protects
Cleaves
Woods
Hides
Sophistry

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Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
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The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
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Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
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Could he with reason murmur at his case, Himself sole author of his own disgrace?
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To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
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Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.
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Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
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But conversation, choose what theme we may, And chiefly when religion leads the way, Should flow, like waters after summer show'rs, Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.
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An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
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Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
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There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.
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And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?
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Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.
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The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.
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Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
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The man to solitude accustom'd long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease, After long drought when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all.
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They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
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... she, that will with kittens jest, Should bear a kitten's joke.
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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.
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