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All truth is precious, if not all divine and what dilates the powers must needs refine.

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
Must
Needs
Refine
Precious
Powers
Divine
Truth

More quotes by William Cowper

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Blest be the art that can immortalize.
William Cowper
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To trace in Nature's most minute design The signature and stamp of power divine. ... The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, To whom an atom is an ample field.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
William Cowper
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A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing.
William Cowper
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
William Cowper
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For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it comes to light, In every cranny but the right.
William Cowper
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No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
William Cowper
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Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear His pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
William Cowper
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God made bees, and bees made honey, God made man, and man made money, Pride made the devil, and the devil made sin So God made a cole-pit to put the devil in.
William Cowper
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A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
William Cowper
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But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
William Cowper
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Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then 'tis your country bids!
William Cowper
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How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at interval upon the ear In cadence sweet now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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Slaves cannot breathe in England if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
William Cowper
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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