Inspirational Quotes by William Cowper
“Of all the creatures that breathe and creep about on Mother Earth there is none so helpless as man. As long as the gods grant him prosperity and health he imagines he will never suffer misfortune in the future. Yet when the blessed gods bring him troubles he has no choice but to endure them with a patient heart. The reason is that the view we mortals take of this earthly life depends on what Zeus, the Father of gods and men, sends us day by day.”
“Telemachus hurled his arms round his father, and he wept. They both felt deep desire for lamentation, and wailed with cries as shrill as birds, like eagles or vultures, when the hunters have deprived them of fledglings who have not yet learned to fly. That was how bitterly they wept.”
“Tell me about a complicated man, Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost... ...And where he went, and who he met, the pain He suffered on the sea, and how he worked To bring his men back home." - Emily Wilson Translation of Homer's Odyssey”
topics: emily-wilson
“If a man is cruel by nature, cruel in action, the mortal world will call down curses on his head while he is alive, and all will mock his memory after death. But then if a man is kind by nature, kind in action, his guests will carry his fame across the earth and people all will praise him from the heart.”
“In this way, the Odyssey’s hero embodies one of its central themes, which is that the capacity to defer satisfaction and endure suffering is as necessary for success as the ability to perform brilliant feats.”
“Must you have battle in your heart forever? The bloody toil of combat? Old contender, will you not yield to the immortal gods? That nightmare cannot die, being eternal evil itself – horror, and pain, and chaos; there is no fighting her, no power can fight her. All that avails is flight.”
“Wie oft geschieht es doch, dass uns ein Zweifel, ob wir den einen oder den anderen Weg einschlagen sollen, ein unerklärlicher Beweggrund bestimmt, eine andere Richtung zu nehmen, als diejenige, zu welcher uns Absicht, Neigung oder Vorteil geführt hätten. Wir wissen nicht, welche Macht dabei über uns waltet; aber nachher entdecken wir, dass wir, wenn wir den Weg eingeschlagen hätten, auf welchen uns die Klugheit zu leiten schien, auf den Weg unseres Verderbens oder Untergangs geraten wären.”
topics: inspirational
“to think that this was all my own; that I was king and lord of all this country indefensibly, and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in England.”
“It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days; and now I changed both my sorrows and my joys; my very desires altered, my affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming, or, indeed, for the two years past.”
“Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger it self, when apparent to the eyes; and we find the burthen of anxiety greater by much, than the evil which we are anxious about; and which was worse than all this, I had not that relief in this trouble from the resignation I used to practise, that I hop'd to have.”
“if God much strong, much might, as the devil, why God not kill the devil, so make him no more wicked?”
“that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that”
“...and for which the very name of a Spaniard is reckoned to be frightful and terrible, to all people of humanity or of Christian compassion; as if the kingdom of Spain were particularly eminent for the produce of a race of men who were without principles of tenderness, or the common bowels of pity to the miserable, which is reckoned to be a mark of generous temper in the mind. (2)”
topics: robinson-crusoe
“Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky. ”
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William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem 'Yardley-Oak'.
Cowper suffered from severe manic depression, and although he found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity, the inspiration behind his much-loved hymns, he often experienced doubt and feared that he was doomed to eternal damnation. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered.
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside.
He was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. After education at Westminster School, he was articled to Mr. Chapman, solicitor, of Ely Place, Holborn, in order to be trained for a career in law.
Later he settled at Huntingdon with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife Mary. Cowper grew to be on such good terms with the Unwin family that he went to live in their house, and moved with them to Olney, where John Newton, a former slave trader who had repented and devoted his life to the gospel, was curate. At Olney, Newton invited Cowper to contribute to a hymnbook that Newton was compiling. The resulting volume known as Olney Hymns was not published until 1779 but includes hymns such as "Praise for the Fountain Opened" (beginning "There is a fountain fill'd with blood") and "Light Shining out of Darkness" (beginning "God moves in a mysterious way") which remain some of Cowper's most familiar verses. Several of Cowper's hymns, as well as others originally published in the "Olney Hymns," are today preserved in the Sacred Harp.
Cowper was seized with dropsy in the spring of 1800 and died in East Dereham, Norfolk.