Quote

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?

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
Within
Careless
Damning
Common
Kiss
Pence
Look
Thousands
Perjury
Book
Till
Pretence
Looks
Kissing
Sworn
Every
Thou
Hast
Sin
Slight
Outside
Oath

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The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.
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Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons to love it, too.
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Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.
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Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.
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The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave) There and there only, is the power to save.
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Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn, That he who made it, and reveal'd its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.
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Thieves at home must hang but he that puts Into his overgorged and bloated purse The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
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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.
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The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.
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Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
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What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.
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The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
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Necessity invented stools, Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs, And luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.
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Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.
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He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has no other views of the world than he had when he was much younger.
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When one that holds communion with the skies Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
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He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.
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Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
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All truth is precious, if not all divine and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
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It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
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