William Cowper Giving Quotations

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

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.

Sacred interpreter of human thought, How few respect or use thee as they ought! But all shall give account of every wrong, Who dare dishonor or defile the tongue; Who prostitute it in the cause of vice, Or sell their glory at a market-price!

Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.

Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor; And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.

The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.

Heaven speed the canvas, gallantly unfurl'd, To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the Pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into one.

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.

In the vast, and the minute, we see The unambiguous footsteps of the God, Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds.

A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.

There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.

All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.

The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.