Quote

Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.

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
Invented
Elbow
Necessity
Sofa
Luxury
Sofas
Accomplish
Elbows
Lasts
Suggested
Last
Convenience
Next
Furniture
Chairs
Stools

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The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.
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Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
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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!
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Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
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Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.
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Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
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All truth is precious, if not all divine and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
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The fall of waters and the song of birds, And hills that echo to the distant berds, Are luxuries excelling all the glare The world can boast, and her chief favorites share.
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Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined, Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern the way.
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Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.
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Come, evening, once again, season of peace Return, sweet evening, and continue long! Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, With matron step, slow moving, while the night Treads on thy sweeping train one hand employ'd In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charged for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day.
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Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
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We bear our shades about us self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
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Some people are more nice than wise.
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If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one.
William Cowper
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O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
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England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!
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The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
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But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
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