William Wordsworth Quotes (419 Quotes)

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

The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls.

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

Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light.

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.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

A poet who has not produced a good poem before he is twenty-five, we may conclude cannot, and never will do so.

There is a comfort in the strength of love Twill make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart.

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

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

Milton thou should'st be living at this hour England hath need of thee.

The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite,a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.

Long have I loved what I behold. The night that calms, the day that cheers The common growth of mother-earth Suffices me.

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

Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

My brain; Worked with a dim and undetermined sense; Of unknown modes of being.

But he is risen, a later star of dawn.

Dreams, books, are each a world and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good. Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong.

Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold.

The stars of midnight shall be dear To her and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.

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

O Silence are Man's noisy yearsNo more than moments of thy life

For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.

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

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

A deep distress hath humanized my Soul.

Blessed barrier between day and day.

After ten months' melancholy, Became a good and honest man.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep The river glideth at his own sweet will Dear God the very houses seem asleep And all that mighty heart is lying still.

Poetry contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents.

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, One after one the sound of rain and bees Murmuring the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie Sleepless.

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

What though the radiance which was once so bright; Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour; Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find; Strength in what remains behin.

Fears and fancies thick upon me came.

'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.

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

A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.

That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth all together, if it moves at all.

My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard.

Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither.

How many undervalue the power of simplicity But it is the real key to the heart.

Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her.

Thou unassuming common-place; Of Nature, with that homely face.

Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice The confidence of reason give, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live.

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.

So build we up the being that we are.