William Wordsworth Quotes

411 Sourced Quotes

Neither evil tongues, rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all the dreary intercourse of daily life, shall ever prevail against us.

William Wordsworth
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?

William Wordsworth
In heaven above, And earth below, they best can serve true gladness Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

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

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

William Wordsworth
I've measured it from side to side: 'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.

William Wordsworth
A soul so pitiably forlorn,
If such do on this earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest—compared
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and christian hope;
Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.

William Wordsworth
Where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

William Wordsworth
The beetle, panoplied in gems and gold A mailed angel on a battle day.

William Wordsworth
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

William Wordsworth
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.

William Wordsworth
Happier of happy though I be, like them
I cannot take possession of the sky,
Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there
One of a mighty multitude whose way
Is a perpetual harmony and dance
Magnificent.

William Wordsworth
Whether we be young or old,
Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
Is with infinitude, and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be.

William Wordsworth
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.

William Wordsworth
If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
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.

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

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

William Wordsworth
While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

William Wordsworth
That to this mountain-daisy's self were known The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown On the smooth surface of this naked stone!

William Wordsworth
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

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

William Wordsworth
The Poet, gentle creature as he is, Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times; His fits when he is neither sick nor well, Though no distress be near him but his own Unmanageable thoughts.

William Wordsworth
It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.

William Wordsworth
Be mild, and cleave to gentle things, thy glory and thy happiness be there.

William Wordsworth
Sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet.

William Wordsworth