William Wordsworth Art Quotations

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

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.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!Even yet thou art to meNo bird, but an invisible thing,A voice, a mystery. . . .

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant / Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air / Of absence withers what was once so fair?

If thou art beautiful, and youth and thought endue thee with all truth-be strong;--be worthy of the grace of God.

The moving accident is not my trade; To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

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.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art.

As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay.

A lawyer art thou? Draw not nigh! Go, carry to some fitter place The keenness of that practised eye, The hardness of that sallow face.

With little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee For thou art worthy, Thou unassuming commonplace Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace Which love makes for thee!

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought, And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion.

Spade! Thou art a tool of honor in my hands. I press thee, through a yielding soil, with pride.

Laying out grounds may be considered a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting.

Laying out grounds... may be considered as a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting.... it is to assist Nature in moving the affections... the affections of those who have the deepest perception of the beauty of Nature...

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up these barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.