Quotes from William Cowper

How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!

Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry-- Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry.

Visits are insatiable devourers of time, and fit only for those who, if they did not that, would do nothing.

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid, Force many a shining youth into the shade, Not to redeem his time, but his estate, And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.

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.

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

Heaven's harmony is universal love.

Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.

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

We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

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

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.

Unless a love of virtue light the flame, Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others' bare.

Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.

When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow?

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.

England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!

They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.

Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love.

The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.

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.

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,- A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.