“O tell me I yet have a friend, / Though a friend I am never to see.”

— William Cowper, Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, l. 37, 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!”

“If you would keep your Secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

“A true friend is one who is, as it were, a second self.”

“May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!”

“Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.”