William Wordsworth quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from William Wordsworth on Wise Famous Quotes.

These hoards of wealth you can unlock at will.

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

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

What we have loved
Others will love
And we will teach them how.

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

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.

But who shall parcel out His intellect by geometric rules, Split like a province into round and square?

But to a higher mark than song can reach,
Rose this pure eloquence.

The mysteries that cups of flowers infold
And all the gorgeous sights which fairies do behold.

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.

A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow rose was to him.
And it was nothing more

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.

Knowing that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, through all the years of this our life, to lead from joy to joy.

One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason;
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

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.

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.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun, Do take a sober colouring from an eye, That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.

The world is too much with us.

Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness

The hope Of active days urged on by flying hours, -

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.

All men feel a habitual gratitude, and something of an honorable bigotry, for the objects which have long continued to please them.

May books and nature be their early joy!

And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises.

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.

A babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart.

The memory of the just survives in Heaven.

The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!

Hope smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer!

And we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone

Alas! how little can a moment show Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays: A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!

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

The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me,-her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears.

The streams with softest sound are flowing, The grass you almost hear it growing, You hear it now, if e'er you can.

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

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

I had melancholy thoughts...
a strangeness in my mind,
A feeling that I was not for that hour,
Nor for that place.

The very flowers are sacred to the poor.

Two voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains: each a mighty Voice.

Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.

The child is the father of man.

But trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.

No motion has she now, no force; she neither hears nor sees; rolled around in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.

What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not.
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!

And I am happy when I sing.

And in thy voice I catch the language of my former heart, and read my former pleasures in the shooting lights of thy wild eyes.

This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.

Nature's old felicities.

Everything is tedious when one does not read with the feeling of the Author.

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge

Dreams, books, are each a world.

We not only wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular
way in which we have been accustomed to be pleased.

There is creation in the eye.

Imagination is the means of deep insight and sympathy, the power to conceive and express images removed from normal objective reality.

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

But thou that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation.

Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago.

to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be without love of human nature

A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove.

Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose type of things through all degrees.

Faith is a passionate intuition.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

I'll teach my boy the sweetest things;
I'll teach him how the owlet sings.

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

Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

Worse than idle is compassion if it ends in tears and sighs.

The power of any art is limited

The Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society.

Death is the quiet haven of us all.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration.

But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant

To character and success, two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together ... humble dependence on God and manly reliance on self.

A deep distress has humanised my soul.

Books are the best type of the influence of the past.

How is it that you live, and what is it you do?

Brothers all In honour, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen.

Miss not the occasion; by the forelock take that subtle power, the never-halting time.

Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.

I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me. 'Tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead.

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

Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart.

A brotherhood of venerable trees.

And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.

Tis said, fantastic ocean doth enfold The likeness of whate'er on land is seen.

A youth to whom was given So much of earth, so much of heaven.

Chains tie us down by land and sea; And wishes, vain as mine, may be All that is left to comfort thee.

There is One great society alone on earth: The noble living and the noble dead.

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.

Hearing often-times the still, sad music of humanity, nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue.

The wealthiest man among us is the best

The light that never was, on sea or land; The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains.

And 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.

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.

The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.