Related:

• Absence of occupation is not rest, A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Retirement, Line 623...
• A business with an income at its heels Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Retirement, Line 614...
• An idler is a watch that wants both hands, As useless if it goes as if it stands.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Retirement, Line 681...
• I praise the Frenchman, How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
  But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet....
• 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.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Retirement, Line 691...
• God made the country, and man made the town.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book i, The Sofa, Line 749...
• Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will. -- William Cowper (1731-1800)
• As dreadful as the Manichean god, Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book v, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 444...
• He would not, with a peremptory tone, Assert the nose upon his face his own.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- Conversation, Line 121...