Inspirational Quotes by William Cowper
“τρὶς δέ μοι ἐκ χειρῶν σκιῇ εἴκελον ἢ καὶ ὀνείρῳ ἔπτατ'" μτφρ. και τρεις φορές μες απ᾿ τα χέρια μου σαν όνειρο, σαν ίσκιος μου πέταξε᾿”
“«¡Ay, ay, cómo culpan los mortales a los dioses!, pues de nosotros, dicen, proceden los males. Pero también ellos por su estupidez soportan dolores más allá de lo que les corresponde.”
“I smiled at him, and told him that men in our circumstances were past the operation of fear: that seeing almost every condition that could be, was better than that which we were supposed to be in, we ought to expect that the consequence, whether death or life, would be sure to be a deliverance. I asked him what he thought of the circumstances of my life, and whether a deliverance were not worth venturing for. ‘And where, sir,’ said I, ‘is your belief of my being preserved here on purpose to save your life, which elevated you a little while ago? For my part,’ said I, ‘there seems to be but one thing amiss in all the prospect of it.’ ‘What’s that?’ says he. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘ ’tis that as you say, there are three or four honest fellows among them, which should be spared; had they been all of the wicked part of the crew, I should have thought God’s providence had singled them out to deliver them into your hands; for depend upon it, every man of them that comes a-shore are our own, and shall die or live as they behave to us.”
“All this labour I was at the expence of, purely from my apprehension on the account of the print of a man’s foot which I had seen; for as yet I never saw any human creature come near the island, and I had now lived two years under these uneasinesses, which indeed made my life much less comfortable than it was before;”
“Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long boat with the shoulder of mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africk; but this was in vain.”
“I stood still an hour or thereabouts without trespassing on our orders (for so long the caravan was in passing the gate), to look at it on every side, near and far off; I mean what was within my view: and the guide, who had been extolling it for the wonder of the world, was mighty eager to hear my opinion of it. I told him it was a most excellent thing to keep out the Tartars; which he happened not to understand as I meant it and so took it for a compliment; but the old pilot laughed! "Oh, Seignior Inglese," says he, "you speak in colours." "In colours!" said I; "what do you mean by that?" "Why, you speak what looks white this way and black that way - gay one way and dull another. You tell him it is a good wall to keep out Tartars; you tell me by that it is good for nothing but to keep out Tartars. I understand you, Seignior Inglese, I understand you; but Seignior Chinese understood you his own way.”
“quel guillochis oeuvre par la providence que la vie de l'homme! par combien de voies secretes et contraires les circonstances diverses ne precipitent-elles pas nos affections! aujourd'hui nous aimons ce que demain nous hairons,aujourd'hui nous recherchons ce que nous fuirons demain,aujourd'hui nous desirons ce que demain nous fera peur...”
“I afterwards made it a certain Rule with me, That whenever I found those secret Hints, or pressings of my Mind, to doing, or not doing any Thing that presented; or to going this Way, or that Way, I never fail’d to obey the secret Dictate; though I knew no other Reason for it, than that such a Pressure, or such a Hint hung upon my Mind: I”
“He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving father’s house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. ”
“In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use; and that, whatever we may heap up to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more. ”
“Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys encrease, the poor's decay, 'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.”
“Usred toga posla završio sa svoju četvrtu godinu na otoku. Neprestanim učenjem postigao sam drukčije znanje nego što je bilo ono što sam ga imao prije. Moji su se pojmovi o stvarima sasvim izmijenili. Gledao sam sada na svijet kao na nešto udaljeno, s čime nemam ništa zajedničko, od čega nemam što očekivati niti u njemu što željeti. Jednom riječi, nisam zapravo imao s njime nikakve veze, niti je bilo vjerojatno da ću ikada imati. Stoga mi se činilo da je svijet onakav kakav će nam se možda pričinjati kad odem s njega, to jest ono mjesto u kojem sam stanovao, ali iz kojega sam se iselio. I doista bih mogao reći, kao što je otac Abraham rekao bogatašu: ''Između tebe i mene stvorio se golem jaz.”
topics: existential
“But all I could make use of was all that was valuable. I had enough to eat and to supply my wants, and what was all the rest to me? If I killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin. If I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground. I could make no more use of them than for fewel; and that I had no occasion for, but to dress my food. In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use; and that whatever we may heap up indeed to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use and no more.”
“It might be truly said, that now I worked for my bread; ‘tis a little wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon, viz. the strange multitude of little things necessary in providing, producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of bread. I that was reduced to a meer state of nature, found this to my daily discouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every hour, even after I had got the first handful of seed-corn, which, as I have said, came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprize.”
“Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think of the woods, the mountains, the desarts I was in; and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together; and this was still worse to me; for if I could burst out into tears, or vent my self by words, it would go off, and the grief having exhausted it self would abate.”
“la crainte du danger est dix mille fois plus effrayante que le danger lui-meme,et nous trouvons le poids de l'anxiete plus lourd de beaucoup que le mal que nous redoutans.”
topics: inspirational
“All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attended them”
“em un mot la nature et l'experience m'appirent,apres mure reflexion,que toutes les bonnes choses de l'univers ne sont bonnes pour nous que suivont l'usage que nous en faisons,et qu'on n'en jouit qu'autant qu'on s'en sert ou qu'on les amasse pour les donner aux autres,et pas plus ”
topics: inspirational
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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.