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The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.

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
Bears
Weak
Rich
Poor
Thinking
Insupportable
Indolent
Fatigue
Bear

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Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies... To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
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All flesh is grass. and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevell'd in the wind Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
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Some people are more nice than wise.
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Blest be the art that can immortalize.
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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.
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Heaven's harmony is universal love.
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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.
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I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
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Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
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All truth is precious, if not all divine and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
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A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
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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.
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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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Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
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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.
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Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.
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Remorse begets reform.
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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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For when was public virtue to be found Where private was not?
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Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in
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