Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another’s pain.
WILLIAM COWPERAbsence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
More William Cowper Quotes
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War’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.
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And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow’d perhaps by a smile.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
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God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to performs
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Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
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Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e’en in age, and at our latest day.
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Perhaps thou gav’st me, though unseen, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss.
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Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.
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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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Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
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The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.
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Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
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What we admire we praise; and when we praise, Advance it into notice, that its worth Acknowledged, others may admire it too.
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While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
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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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[My kitten’s] gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible, if they could.
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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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Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
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Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection.
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Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
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Grief is itself a medicine.
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Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
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Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
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It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
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Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
WILLIAM COWPER