Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, ’tis being flayed alive.
WILLIAM COWPERThe proud are ever most provoked by pride.
More William Cowper Quotes
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But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease.
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The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. 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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Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.
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Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.
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Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
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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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Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.
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God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
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I am out of humanity’s reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.
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An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.
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Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.
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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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Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another’s pain.
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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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Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.
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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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The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
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Grief is itself a medicine.
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Built God a church and laughed His word to scorn.
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The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
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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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Blest be the art that can immortalize,–the art that baffles time’s tyrannic claim to quench it.
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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth.
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And works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.
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Absence of occupation is not rest.
WILLIAM COWPER