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 COWPERPleasure is labour too, and tires as much.
More William Cowper Quotes
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Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies… To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
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Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
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Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.
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Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in
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Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
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The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
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The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
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Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
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And natural in gesture; much impress’d Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.
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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.
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No traveler e’er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.
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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.
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Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
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The still small voice is wanted.
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Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
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The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear; And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive.
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The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.
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A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
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Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.
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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth.
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Blest be the art that can immortalize,–the art that baffles time’s tyrannic claim to quench it.
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The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, / whom, snoring, she disturbs.
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Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
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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.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
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Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything.
WILLIAM COWPER