Top 200 William Cowper Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.”

— William Cowper

2. “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.”

— William Cowper

3. “Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break, With blessings on your head.”

— William Cowper

4. “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.”

— William Cowper

5. “Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.”

— William Cowper

6. “Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.”

— William Cowper

7. “God made the country, and man made the town.”

— William Cowper

8. “Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer keeps the Christian’s armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.”

— William Cowper

9. “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.”

— William Cowper

10. “Heaven’s harmony is universal love.”

— William Cowper

11. “Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.”

— William Cowper

12. “The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.”

— William Cowper

13. “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”

— William Cowper

14. “No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.”

— William Cowper

15. “When nations are to perish in their sins, ’tis in the Church the leprosy begins.”

— William Cowper

16. “How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.”

— William Cowper

17. “Tea – the cups that cheer but not inebriate.”

— William Cowper

18. “But oars alone can ne’er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.”

— William Cowper

19. “There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.”

— William Cowper

20. “The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.”

— William Cowper

21. “England with all thy faults, I love thee still – My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.”

— William Cowper

22. “Some people are more nice than wise.”

— William Cowper

23. “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.”

— William Cowper

24. “Grief is itself a medicine.”

— William Cowper

25. “Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.”

— William Cowper

26. “My soul is sick with every day’s report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.”

— William Cowper

27. “In a fleshly tomb, I am buried above ground.”

— William Cowper

28. “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.”

— William Cowper

29. “I am out of humanity’s reach.”

— William Cowper

30. “Oh winter, king of fire side enjoyments, home born happiness.”

— William Cowper

31. “Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”

— William Cowper

32. “A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.”

— William Cowper

33. “Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.”

— William Cowper

34. “The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear; And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive.”

— William Cowper

35. “The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”

— William Cowper

36. “Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger’s treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll’d me, minds are never to be sold.”

— William Cowper

37. “A teacher should be sparing of his smile.”

— William Cowper

38. “A life all turbulence and noise may seem To him that leads it wise and to be praised, But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still waters.”

— William Cowper

39. “Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.”

— William Cowper

40. “All we behold is miracle.”

— William Cowper

41. “And diff’ring judgments serve but to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.”

— William Cowper

42. “How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.”

— William Cowper

43. “Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die.”

— William Cowper

44. “I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, OF needless shame, and self-impos’d disgrace.”

— William Cowper

45. “Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock’d in the cradle of the western breeze.”

— William Cowper

46. “We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too.”

— William Cowper

47. “The proud are ever most provoked by pride.”

— William Cowper

48. “A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well link’d; Tell not as new what ev’ry body knows; and, new or old, still hasten to a close.”

— William Cowper

49. “To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach.”

— William Cowper

50. “The still small voice is wanted.”

— William Cowper