William Wordsworth Quotes

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

The eye— it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.

How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!

Here must thou be, O man, Strength to thyself - no helper hast thou here - Here keepest thou thy individual state: No other can divide with thee this work, No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability. 'Tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else 'tis not thine at all.

Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.

Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy.

Wisdom married to immortal verse.

We murder to dissect.

A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.

He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.

Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source, 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.

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.

The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.

Death is the quiet haven of us all.

Wild is the music of autumnal winds Amongst the faded woods.

But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.

Love betters what is best

In this sequestered nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard seat And birds and flowers once more to greet. . . .

Of friends, however humble, scorn not one.

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.

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.

From the body of one guilty deed a thousand ghostly fears and haunting thoughts proceed.

There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast.

At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident tomorrows.

To be a Prodigal's favourite,-then, worse truth, A Miser's pensioner,-behold our lot!

Delight and liberty, the simple creed of childhood.

Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children.

Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart.

And the most difficult of tasks to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain.

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.

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.

We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.

To be young was very heaven!

He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,- The past unsighed for, and the future sure.

That inward eye/ Which is the bliss of solitude.

Monastic brotherhood, upon rock Aerial.

Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness.

Before us lay a painful road, And guidance have I sought in duteous love From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way Each takes in this high matter, all may move Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.

For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude

Sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round, It seemed as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound.