William Cowper

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

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

No one was ever scolded out of their sins.

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

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

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

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

Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.

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

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.

An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.

The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

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

The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.

Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.

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

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