Quote

A Christian's wit is offensive light, A beam that aids, but never grieves the sight Vig'rous in age as in the flush of youth, 'Tis always active on the side of truth.

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
Never
Youth
Flush
Side
Beam
Sides
Grieving
Age
Offensive
Christian
Wit
Light
Aids
Truth
Active
Rous
Always
Sight
Grieves

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I have a kitten,the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin.
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The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.
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A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.
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Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined, Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern the way.
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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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The only amarantine flower on earth Is virtue.
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If a great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little man that despises them is no contemptible one.
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Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
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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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Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die
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Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
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Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.
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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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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.
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To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
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How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.
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O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
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Folly ends where genuine hope begins.
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Some write a narrative of wars and feats, Of heroes little known, and call the rant A history.
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Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
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