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Absence of occupation is not rest.

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
Occupation
Absence
Rest

More quotes by William Cowper

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It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
William Cowper
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A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.
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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God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction.
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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His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.
William Cowper
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Oh, popular applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales But swell'd into a gust--who then, alas! With all his canvas set, and inexpert, And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power?
William Cowper
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It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
William Cowper
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Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign.
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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He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it has a mind That hungers, and supplies it and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business.
William Cowper
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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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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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Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
William Cowper
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The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.
William Cowper
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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.
William Cowper
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The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
William Cowper
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Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
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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Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.
William Cowper