Quotes
Quotes - Cowper
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a shining face.
Beware of desperate steps! The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
Toll for the brave!--
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.
He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says--what says he?--Caw.
For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
But strive still to be a man before your mother.
He has no hope who never had a fear.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
By low ambition and the thirst of praise.
On the summit see, The seals of office glitter in his eyes; He climbs, he pants, he grasps them! At his heels, Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down, And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, Where peace and hospitality might reign.
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies. . . . It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.
When his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador: "If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits."
O Popular Applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
Silently as a dream the fabric rose; No sound of hammer or of saw was there.
None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
