Quotes by Hymnwriters

Such stuff the world is made of.
William Cowper
If you could once make up your mind never to undertake more work ... than you can carry on calmly quietly without hurry or flurry ... and if the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and ... out of breath you would stop and take a breath you would find this simple common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish.
Elizabeth Prentiss
Variety's the very spice of life That gives it all its flavour.
William Cowper
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!
William Cowper
We can easily manage if we will only take each day the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.
John Newton
The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow.
William Cowper
I praise the Frenchman his remark was shrewd - "How sweet how passing sweet is solitude." But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper - Solitude is sweet.
William Cowper
We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.
William Cowper
A glory gilds the sacred page Majestic like the sun It gives a light to every age It gives but borrows none.
William Cowper
Absence of occupation is not rest A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
William Cowper
Religion if in heavenly truths attired Needs only to be seen to be admired.
William Cowper
The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades but the best of all professions.
John Newton
Restraining prayer we cease to fight Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.
William Cowper
The spirit of prayer is the fruit and token of the Spirit of adoption.
John Newton
Beyond our utmost wants His love and power can bless To praying souls he always grants More than they can express.
John Newton
You are coming to a King Large petitions with you bring For his grace and power are such None can ever ask too much.
John Newton
Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.
John Newton
Absence of occupation is not rest A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
William Cowper
Religion if in heavenly truths attired Needs only to be seen to be admired.
William Cowper
The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades but the best of all professions.
John Newton
Restraining prayer we cease to fight Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.
William Cowper
The spirit of prayer is the fruit and token of the Spirit of adoption.
John Newton
Beyond our utmost wants His love and power can bless To praying souls he always grants More than they can express.
John Newton
You are coming to a King Large petitions with you bring For his grace and power are such None can ever ask too much.
John Newton
Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.
John Newton
Beware of desp'rate steps the darkest day lived till tomorrow will have pass'd away.
William Cowper
Happiness depends as Nature shows less on exterior things than most suppose.
William Cowper
The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
William Cowper
Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
William Cowper
Grief is itself a med'cine.
William Cowper
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.
William Cowper
Nearer my God to Thee - Nearer to Thee - E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me Still all my song shall be Nearer my God to Thee Nearer to Thee!
Sarah Flower Adams
A fool must now and then be right by chance.
William Cowper
A moral sensible and well-bred man Will not affront me and no other can.
William Cowper
The town is man's world but this (country life) is of God.
William Cowper
What is there in the vale of life Half so delightful as a wife When Friendship love and peace combine To stamp the marriage bond divine?
William Cowper
God made the country and man made the town.
William Cowper
He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has no other views of the world than he had when he was much younger.
William Cowper
Remorse begets reform.
William Cowper
No traveler e'er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.
William Cowper
People ask me how it happens that my children are all so promptly obedient and so happy. As if it chanced that some parents have such children or chanced that some have not! I am afraid it is only too true, as someone has remarked, that "this is the age of obedient parents!" What then will be the future of their children? How can they yield to God who have never been taught to yield to human authority? And how well fitted will they be to rule their own households who have never learned to rule themselves?
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
My fugitive years are all hasting away,And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments I see,Have a being less durable even than he.
William Cowper
When we don't pray, we quit the fight. Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright. And Satan trembles when he sees. The weakest saint upon his knees.
William Cowper
If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.
William Cowper
The dearest idol I have known,Whate'er that idol be,Help me to tear it from thy throne,And worship only thee.So shall my walk be close with God,Calm and serene my frame;So purer light shall mark the roadThat leads me to the Lamb.
William Cowper
You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him.
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ and to know that I love Him--this is all!
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
This is the testimony of all the good books, sermons, hymns, and memoirs I read--that God's ways are infinitely perfect; that we are to love Him for what He is and therefore equally as much when He afflicts as when He prospers us; that there is no real happiness but in doing and suffering His will; and that this life is but a scene of probation through which we pass to the real life above.
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near to Him, we may be sure we will get none by keeping away from Him.
John Newton
Man disavows, and Deity disowns me;Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths allBolted against me.Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers,Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentenceWorse than Abiram's.Him the vindictive rod of angry JusticeSent quick and howling to the centre headlong;I, fed with judgement, in a fleshy tomb, amBuried above ground.
William Cowper
She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing.Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Take what I cannot give--my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, youth, age, and spend them in Thy service, O my crucified Master, Redeemer, God. Oh, let these not be mere words! Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My heart is athirst for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Elizabeth Prentiss
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds:And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleasedWith melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;Some chord in unison with what we hearIs touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
William Cowper
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urnThrows up a steamy column and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in.
William Cowper
Our course heavenward is like the plan of the zealous pilgrim of old, who for every three steps forward, took one backward.
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
God moves in mysterious waysHis wonders to performs
William Cowper
The midsummer sun shines but dim, The fields strive in vain to look gay; But when I am happy in Him December's as pleasant as May.
John Newton
But you will imagine that it is best that He should at once enable you to see clearly. If it is, you may be sure He will do it. He never makes mistakes. But He often deals far differently with His disciples. He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him. What His methods will be with you I cannot foretell. But you may be sure that He never works in an arbitrary way. He has a reason for everything He does. You may not understand why He leads you now in this way and now in that, but you may, nay, you must believe that perfection is stamped on His every act.
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.
John Newton
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am
John Newton