Date: 1785

"Threads of politic and shrewd design" that charge the mind with meanings may be (or not, as it were) disentangled from "the puzzled skein"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

The infant mind may (and should) be fed with "proper fare"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

"Like caterpillars dangling under trees / By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, / Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace / The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, / While every worm industriously weaves / And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves; / So numerous are the follie...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

The growing mind needs better nourishment than "conjugated verbs" and "nouns declined"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

The soul controls "the state, the splendour and the throne, / An intellectual kingdom, all her own"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

One may steal "The gem of truth from his unguarded soul"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

"The stamp of artless piety impress'd / By kind tuition on his yielding breast"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

Vile example may be stamped on the breast

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

"Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock, / Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1788

"Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought / Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)