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The few that pray at all pray oft amiss.

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
Amiss
Pray
Praying
Prayer

More quotes by William Cowper

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Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.
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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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To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
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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.
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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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I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, OF needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace.
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Grief is itself a medicine.
William Cowper
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I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.
William Cowper
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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
William Cowper
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Sacred interpreter of human thought, How few respect or use thee as they ought! But all shall give account of every wrong, Who dare dishonor or defile the tongue Who prostitute it in the cause of vice, Or sell their glory at a market-price!
William Cowper
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True modesty is a discerning grace And only blushes in the proper place But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear, Where 'tis a shame to be asham'd t' appear: Humility the parent of the first, The last by vanity produc'd and nurs'd.
William Cowper
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Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
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Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
William Cowper
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The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
William Cowper
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Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds A stream of liberal and heroic deeds The swell of pity, not to be confined Within the scanty limits of the mind.
William Cowper
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Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.
William Cowper
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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
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How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.
William Cowper