Frasi di William Cowper

pagina 2

“Di quando in quando uno sciocco deve pur azzeccarci, per combinazione.”

“Dio si muove in modo misterioso | Per compiere i suoi prodigi | Nel mare egli calca le sue impronte | E cavalca la tempesta.”

“La Natura è solo un nome per un effetto
La cui causa è Dio.”

“Le ricchezze hanno ali, e la magnificenza è un sogno.”

“Dio creò la campagna e l'uomo creò la città.”

“E il primo fabbro era il figlio del primo assassino.”

“Il papa ha reso il fare poesia una semplice arte meccanica.”

“Il parroco che conosce un duca ha abbastanza cognizioni.”

“Il rimorso è l'uovo fatale deposto dal piacere in ogni petto dove si è fatto il nido.”

“Ma la sofferenza ancor ama scoprire
La propria immagine nei casi altrui.”

“Sospendere il giudizio serve solo a dichiarare che la verità sta da qualche parte. Se solo sapessimo dove.”

“Tu Stampa, dea della nostra idolatria.”

“Un uomo che fa chiasso ha sempre ragione.”

“Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion, Knowledge dwells
in heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.”

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

“Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.”

“The still small voice is wanted.”

“The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”

“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.”

“Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.”

“Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.”

“But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.”

“Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.”

“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”

“I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.”

“Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.”

“Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a luster, he that runs may read.”

“For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.”

“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!”

“Deem our nation brutes no longer,
Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the colour of our kind.”

“God made the country, and man made the town.”

“His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.”

“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

“The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”

“Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.”

“Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.”

“A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.”

“An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.”

“Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”

“The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.”

“How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!”

“Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.”