'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, / To peep at such a world; to see the stir / Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.


William Cowper

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Words pregnant with celestial fire.
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The sounding jargon of the schools.
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Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
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That good diffused may more abundant grow.
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. . . glory built On selfish principles is shame and guilt.
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Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smiling face.
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Prison'd in a parlour snug and small, Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall.
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There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
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Fast-anchor'd isle.
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Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.
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Exactness is the sublimity of fools. [Fr., L'exactitude est le sublime des sots.]
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The solemn fog; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
WILLIAM COWPER
Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which e...
WILLIAM COWPER
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
WILLIAM COWPER
The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is alw...
WILLIAM COWPER
Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinc...
WILLIAM COWPER
'Tis hard if all is false that I advance
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
WILLIAM COWPER
A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
WILLIAM COWPER
The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the lands where sorrow is unknown.
WILLIAM COWPER
O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst o...
WILLIAM COWPER
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of o...
WILLIAM COWPER
I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,-- "How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude." B...
WILLIAM COWPER
A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enl...
WILLIAM COWPER
Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more d...
WILLIAM COWPER
Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour.
WILLIAM COWPER
The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased ...
WILLIAM COWPER
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And r...
WILLIAM COWPER
His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.
WILLIAM COWPER
Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of ...
WILLIAM COWPER
Still ending, and beginning still.
WILLIAM COWPER
We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And rang...
WILLIAM COWPER
Some boundless contiguity of shade.
WILLIAM COWPER
No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.
WILLIAM COWPER
Discourse may want an animated "No"To brush the surface, and to make it flow;But still remember, if ...
WILLIAM COWPER
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed, / Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass los...
WILLIAM COWPER
Spare feast! a radish and an egg.
WILLIAM COWPER
I was a stricken deer, that left the herd / Long since.
WILLIAM COWPER