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How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!
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
Time
Spent
Ground
Happiness
Wish
Revoked
Found
Inexperience
Past
Readily
Might
Missed
Trying
Perceive
More quotes by William Cowper
We bear our shades about us self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
William Cowper
Where thou art gone, adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
William Cowper
War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
William Cowper
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hourThe bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
William Cowper
The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue the only lasting treasure, truth.
William Cowper
Spare feast! a radish and an egg.
William Cowper
Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.
William Cowper
I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.
William Cowper
Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
William Cowper
[My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
William Cowper
I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.
William Cowper
Most satirists are indeed a public scourge Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.
William Cowper
Dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed. . . . When I can find no other occupation, I think and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.
William Cowper
Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid, Force many a shining youth into the shade, Not to redeem his time, but his estate, And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.
William Cowper
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
William Cowper
The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells.
William Cowper
Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.
William Cowper
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
William Cowper
His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.
William Cowper
It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
William Cowper
