Quotes by William Cowper

• The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
• O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
• Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
• Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.
• Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
• No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
• Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.
• O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.
• The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.
• The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
• The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
• Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
• No one was ever scolded out of their sins.
• Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
• Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
• They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
• The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.
• A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
• No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
• Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.
• A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.
• Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
• Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
• Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
• An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
• 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.
• Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
• Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
• God made the country, and man made the town.
• God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.
• How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
• It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
• Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
• Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
• 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.
• Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.