William Cowper Quotes

237 quotes in 2314 categories

• If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one...
• Admirals extolled for standing still, or doing nothing with a deal of skill.
• War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
• A noisy man is always in the right.
• How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to…
• Grief is itself a medicine.
• Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
• No one was ever scolded out of their sins.
• 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…
• I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?
• Strength may wield the ponderous spade, May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home; But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, And most attractive,…
• 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…
• The proud are ever most provoked by pride.
• The beggarly last doit.
• Not to understand a treasure's worth till time has stole away the slighted good, is cause of half the poverty we feel, and makes the…
• 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…
• Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.
• ... she, that will with kittens jest, Should bear a kitten's joke.
• [My kitten] is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know you will delight in her.
• ... no wisdom that [my kitten] may gain by experience and reflection hereafter will compensate for the loss of her present hilarity.

Browse William Cowper Quotes by Category