Top 200 William Cowper Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.”

— William Cowper

102. “But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown!”

— William Cowper

103. “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

104. “If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one...”

— William Cowper

105. “I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

— William Cowper

106. “Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.”

— William Cowper

107. “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.”

— William Cowper

108. “Happy the man who sees a God employed in all the good and ills that checker life.”

— William Cowper

109. “Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter; therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.”

— William Cowper

110. “Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.”

— William Cowper

111. “Made poetry a mere mechanic art.”

— William Cowper

112. “Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.”

— William Cowper

113. “The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.”

— William Cowper

114. “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.”

— William Cowper

115. “Toil for the brave! The brave that are no more.”

— William Cowper

116. “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

117. “War’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.”

— William Cowper

118. “There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.”

— William Cowper

119. “No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.”

— William Cowper

120. “Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.”

— William Cowper

121. “We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.”

— William Cowper

122. “With spots quadrangular of diamond form, ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, and spades, the emblems of untimely graves.”

— William Cowper

123. “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

124. “He that negotiates between God and man, As God’s ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.”

— William Cowper

125. “Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kiss’d his horse.”

— William Cowper

126. “All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.”

— William Cowper

127. “Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.”

— William Cowper

128. “Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.”

— William Cowper

129. “Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.”

— William Cowper

130. “Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.”

— William Cowper

131. “A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.”

— William Cowper

132. “God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction.”

— William Cowper

133. “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.”

— William Cowper

134. “O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?”

— William Cowper

135. “The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.”

— William Cowper

136. “There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.”

— William Cowper

137. “Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.”

— William Cowper

138. “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.”

— William Cowper

139. “Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.”

— William Cowper

140. “Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.”

— William Cowper

141. “Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.”

— William Cowper

142. “There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.”

— William Cowper

143. “But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, The scorn of danger, and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.”

— William Cowper

144. “There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.”

— William Cowper

145. “Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.”

— William Cowper

146. “Though peace be made, yet it’s interest that keep peace.”

— William Cowper

147. “Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.”

— William Cowper

148. “How various his employments whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return Esteems that busy world an idler too!”

— William Cowper

149. “When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile.”

— William Cowper

150. “Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.”

— William Cowper