Quotes from William Cowper

No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone;When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished, each alone:But I beneath a rougher sea,And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,Kings would not play at.

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.

How much a dunce that has been sent to roamExcels a dunce that has been kept at home!

I praise the Frenchman [La Bruyère], his remark was shrewd—How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!But grant me still a friend in my retreatWhom I may whisper—solitude is sweet.

Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.

His wit invites you by his looks to come,But when you knock it never is at home.

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

Shine by the side of every path we treadWith such a luster, he that runs may read.

Absence of occupation is not rest,A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,To peep at such a world; to see the stirOf the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.

From reveries so airy, from the toilOf dropping buckets into empty wells,And growing old in drawing nothing up.

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

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.

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching voidThe world can never fill.

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

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

Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Variety's the very spice of life.

I am monarch of all I survey,My right there is none to dispute.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungsReceive our air, that moment they are free!They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.