William Cowper

Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.

— William Cowper

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

— William Cowper

O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?

— William Cowper

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.

— William Cowper

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

— William Cowper

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

— William Cowper

The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

— William Cowper

Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.

— William Cowper

Fanaticism soberly defined, is the false fire of an over heated mind.

— William Cowper

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.

— William Cowper

Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

The darkest day, If you live till tomorrow will have past away.

— William Cowper

The life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

— William Cowper

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me: hell might afford my miseries a shelter; therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all bolted against me.

— William Cowper

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

— William Cowper

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; Wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

— William Cowper

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

— William Cowper

God made the country and man made the town.

— William Cowper

Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.

— William Cowper

A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.

— William Cowper

It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.

— William Cowper

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

— William Cowper

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

— William Cowper

Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.

— William Cowper

Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!

— William Cowper

Remorse begets reform.

— William Cowper

Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.

— William Cowper

No one was ever scolded out of their sins.

— William Cowper

Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.

— William Cowper

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?

— William Cowper

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.

— William Cowper

The path of sorrow and that path alone, leads to a land where sorrow is unknown.

— William Cowper

Once more I would adopt the graver style -- a teacher should be sparing of his smile.

— William Cowper

A fretful temper will divide the closest knot that may be tied, by ceaseless sharp corrosion; a temper passionate and fierce may suddenly your joys disperse at one immense explosion.

— William Cowper

Candid and generous and just. Boys care but little whom they trust. An error soon corrected -- for who but learns in riper years. That man, when smoothest he appears, is most to be suspected?

— William Cowper

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.

— William Cowper

Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.

— William Cowper

A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing.

— William Cowper