“Men deal with life as children with their play, / Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.”

— William Cowper, Hope, l. 127, 1782

About William Cowper

1731 – 1800

English poet and hymnwriter, author of "The Task".

“Still ending, and beginning still.”

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

“Domestic happiness, thou only bliss of Paradise that has surviv'd the fall!”

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”

“The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life.”

“Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.”

“Not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.”

“Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.”

“You can live without a father who accepts you, but you cannot live without a world that makes some sense to you.”