Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Cowper
William Cowper

William Cowper Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

Famous William Cowper Quotes

“Dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and therefore take care to be constantly employed. . . . When I can find no other occupation, I think; and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme.”

“Fashion, leader of a chatt'ring train, Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign Who shifts and changes all things but his shape, And would degrade her vot'ry to an ape, The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong, Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue, There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace, Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace, And when accomplish'd in her wayward school, Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.”

“Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn, That he who made it, and reveal'd its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.”