Quotes from William Cowper

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.

And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.

A teacher should be sparing of his smile.

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

O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.

Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's pain.

This fond attachment to the well-known place Whence first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.

No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.

What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

Still ending, and beginning still.

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.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.

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.

He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business.

How! leap into the pit our life to save? To save our life leap all into the grave.

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.

Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.

Blest be the art that can immortalize,--the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim to quench it.

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 world the wilderness it is.

Philologists, who chase A painting syllable through time and space Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.

Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.