William Wordsworth Quotations

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune.

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.

How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold.

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come.

But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.

Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,/ As tempted more; more able to endure,/ As more exposed to suffering and distress.

Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf/ Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself.

O dearest, dearest boy! my heartFor better lore would seldom yearn,Could I but teach the hundredth partOf what from thee I learn.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,/ And never looks behind;/ And sings a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind.

No Nightingale did ever chant More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebri

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

One in whom persuasion and beliefHad ripened into faith, and faith becomeA passionate intuition.

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky.

My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky.

More like a man/ Flying from something that he dreads than one/ Who sought the thing he loved.

My days, my friend, are almost gone,My life has been approved,And many love me; but by noneAm I enough beloved.

O Nightingale, thou surely art/ A creature of a 'fiery heart'.

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility

No human ear shall ever hear me speak;No human dwelling ever give me food,Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild,In search of nothing, that this earth can give,But expiation, will I wander on --A Man by pain and thought compelled to live,Yet loathing life -- till anger is appeasedIn Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die.

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;And hermits are contented with their cells.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shadeOf that which once was great, is passed away.

Minds that have nothing to conferFind little to perceive.

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;And humble cares, and delicate fears;A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;And love and thought and joy.

Many are our joysIn youth, but oh! what happiness to liveWhen every hour brings palpable accessOf knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,And sorrow is not there!

Soft is the music that would charm for ever; The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

Soft is the music that would charm for ever;The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

She was a phantom of delightWhen first she gleamed upon my sight.

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;The charities that soothe, and heal, and blessAre scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.

. . . I would stand, If the night blackened with a coming storm, Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are The ghostly language of the ancient earth, Or make their dim abode in distant winds. Thence did I drink the visionary power; And deem not profitless those fleeting moods Of shadowy exultation: not for this, That they are kindred to our purer mind And intellectual life; but that the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity. . . .

. . . I would stand,If the night blackened with a coming storm,Beneath some rock, listening to notes that areThe ghostly language of the ancient earth,Or make their dim abode in distant winds.Thence did I drink the visionary power;And deem not profitless those fleeting moodsOf shadowy exultation: not for this,That they are kindred to our purer mindAnd intellectual life; but that the soul,Remembering how she felt, but what she feltRemembering not, retains an obscure senseOf possible sublimity. . . .

For still, the more he works, the moreDo his weak ankles swell.

Four years and thirty, told this very week,Have I been now a sojourner on earth,And yet the morning gladness is not goneWhich then was in my mind.

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore of nicely-calculated less or more.

Give unto me, made lowly wise,/ The spirit of self-sacrifice.

but(for) she is in her grave - and, oh, the difference to me

To every Form of being is assigned,"Thus calmly spoke the venerable Sage,"An active Principle.

To every natural form, rock, fruits, or flower,Even the loose stones that cover the highway,I gave a moral life.

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair. . . .

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair. . . .

He murmurs near the running brooksA music sweeter than their own.

Hence in a season of calm weather/ Though inland far we be,/ Our souls have sight of that immortal sea/ Which brought us hither,/ Can in a moment travel thither,/ And see the children sport upon the shore,/ And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; Look up a second time, and, one by one, You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, And wonder how they could elude the sight!

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none;Look up a second time, and, one by one,You mark them twinkling out with silvery light,And wonder how they could elude the sight!

That blessed mood,In which the burden of the mystery,In which the heavy and the weary weightOf all this unintelligible world,Is lightened.

Stepping westward seemed to be/ A kind of heavenly destiny.

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!/ O Duty! if that name thou love/ Who art a light to guide, a rod/ To check the erring and reprove.

Surprised by joy -- impatient as the windI wished to share the transport.

Plain living and high thinking are no more:The homely beauty of the good old causeIs gone.

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,The work of Fancy, or some happy toneOf meditation, slipping in betweenThe beauty coming and the beauty gone.

O Reader! had you in your mindSuch stores as silent thought can bring,O gentle Reader! you would findA tale in everything.

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.

Type of the wise who soar but never roam;True to the kindred points of heaven and home.

We have within ourselvesEnough to fill the present day with joy,And overspread the future years with hope.

Wisdom is oft times nearer when we stoop than when we soar

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.

My brainWorked with a dim and undetermined senseOf unknown modes of being.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is heThat every man in arms should wish to be?

The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,/ The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:/ And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,/ Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

Written in Early Spring I heard a thousand blended notes While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What Man has made of Man.

There is a comfort in the strength of love; 'T will make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart. . . .

There is a comfort in the strength of love;'T will make a thing endurable, which elseWould overset the brain, or break the heart. . . .

There is a dark invisible workmanship - that reconciles discordant elements - and makes them move in one society

When a damp/ Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand/ The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew/ Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!

Whether we be young or old,Our destiny, our being's heart and home,Is with infinitude, and only there;With hope it is, hope that can never die,Effort and expectation, and desire,And something evermore about to be.

With Nature never do they wageA foolish strife; they seeA happy youth, and their old ageIs beautiful and free.

We bow our heads before Thee, and we laudAnd magnify thy name, Almighty God!

We feel that we are greater than we know.