Quotes
Quotes - Cowper
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. - transcribed by James Henry Dixon,
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.
But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.
All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
Now let us sing, long live the king.
I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others' bare.
Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife, His only answer was a blameless life; And he that forged, and he that threw the dart, Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.
We are his, To serve him nobly in the common cause, True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
The rout is Folly's circle, which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoy'd into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise.
He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement.
I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,-- "How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude." But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more!
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 path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the lands where sorrow is unknown.
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.
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.
Me therefore studious of laborious ease.
Hast thou not learn'd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?
