Date: 1785

"All constraint, / Except what wisdom lays on evil men, / Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes / Their progress in the road of science; blinds / The eyesight of discovery, and begets / In those that suffer it, a sordid mind."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

A meagre intellect is "unfit / To be tenant of man's noble form"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: "as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Knowledge and wisdom dwell in the head: knowledge in "heads replete with thoughts of other men" and wisdom "in minds attentive of their own"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Who then that has a mind well strung and tuned / To contemplation, and within his reach / A scene so friendly to his favourite task, / Would waste attention at the chequer'd board, / His host of wooden warriors to and fro / Marching and counter-marching, with an eye / As fixt as marble, with a f...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Thy saints proclaim thee King; and in their hearts / Thy title is engraven with a pen / Dipt in the fountain of eternal love"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave / Need no such aids as superstition lends / To steel their hearts against the dread of death!"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"He that attends to his interior self, [...] Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve / No unimportant, though a silent task."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The "eyesight of discovery" may be blinded by constraints

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"I tread his deck, / Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes / Discover countries, with a kindred heart / Suffer his woes and share in his escapes, / While fancy, like the finger of a clock, / Runs the great circuit, and is still at home."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)