William Wordsworth Quotes (419 Quotes)

When his veering gait And every motion of his starry train Seem governed by a strain Of music, audible to him alone.

Faith is a passionate intuition.

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

Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide The form remains, the function never dies.

The tendency, too potent in itself,Of use and custom to bow down the soulUnder a growing weight of vulgar sense,And substitute a universe of deathFor that which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine, and true.

She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight, A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilights too her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low.

Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.

And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore.

Maidens withering on the stalk.

Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made.

Oh for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave.

The brook and road; Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait.

A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind.

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense.

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

Beloved Vale, I said, When I shall con those many records of my childish years

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

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.

All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.

Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow.

How men livedEven next-door neighbors, as we say, yet stillStrangers, not knowing each the other's name.

To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident to-morrows.

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.

The silence that is in the starry sky.

He traveled here, he traveled there- But not the value of a hair Was heart or head the better.

They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude.

And O, ye fountains, meadows, hills and groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves; Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might.

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.

One of those heavenly days that cannot die.

Because the good old rule Sufficeth them,the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.

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.

Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.

Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

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

Enough, if something from our hands have power; To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.

The Eagle, he was lord above, And Rob was lord below.

Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams -- can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

All things that love the sun are out of doors.

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

Spirits overwrought; Were making night do penance for a day; Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

There's not a nook within this solemn pass; But were an apt confessional for one; Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That life is but a tale of morning grass; Withered at eve.

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

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.

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.

That was the song - the song for me.

A man of hope and forward-looking mind; Even to the last.

Of blessed consolations in distress.