William Wordsworth Quotes

Habit rules the unreflecting herd.

~ William Wordsworth

Books! tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet,How sweet his music! on my life,There's more of wisdom in it.

~ William Wordsworth

Though nothing can bring back the hourOf splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;We will grieve not, rather findStrength in what remains behind;In the primal sympathyWhich having been must ever be...

~ William Wordsworth

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest— Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast.

~ William Wordsworth

What though the radiance which was once so brightBe now for ever taken from my sight,Though nothing can bring back the hourOf splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;We will grieve not, rather findStrength in what remains behind;In the primal sympathyWhich having been must ever be;In the soothing thoughts that springOut of human suffering;In the faith that looks through death,In years that bring the philosophic mind.

~ William Wordsworth

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

~ 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

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too longBeen parted by the hurrying world, and droop,Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,How gracious, how benign, is Solitude

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delightWhen first she gleam'd upon my sight;A lovely Apparition, sentTo be a moment's ornament:Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;But all things else about her drawnFrom May-time and the cheerful dawn;A dancing shape, an image gay,To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

Sweet is the lore which nature brings,Our meddling intellectMisshapes the beauteous forms of things,—We murder to dissect.

~ William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy- impatient as the WindI turned to share the transport-- Oh! with whomBut thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,That spot which no vicissitude can find?Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind--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 blindTo my most grievous loss? -- That thought's returnWas the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;That neither present time, nor years unbornCould to my sight that heavenly face restore.

~ William Wordsworth

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, with a natural instinct to discern what knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; abides by this resolve, and stops not there, but makes his moral being his prime care.

~ William Wordsworth

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor... To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves.

~ William Wordsworth

Such views the youthful Bard allure,But, heedless of the following gloom,He deems their colours shall endure'Till peace go with him to the tomb.—And let him nurse his fond deceit,And what if he must die in sorrow!Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,Though grief and pain may come tomorrow?

~ William Wordsworth

Therefore am I still / A lover of the meadows and the woods, / And mountains; and of all that we behold / From this green earth; of all the mighty world / Of eye and ear, both what they half create / And what perceive; well pleased to recognize / In nature and the language of the sense, / The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse/ The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul / Of all my moral being.

~ William Wordsworth

This is the way in which he (poet) did his work. He used to go out with a pencil and a tablet and note what struck him...and make a picture out of it...But Nature does not allow an inventory to be made of her charms! He should have left his pencil behind, and gone forth in a meditative spirit; and, on a later day, he should have embodied in verse not all that he had noted but what he best remembered of the scene; and he would have then presented us with its soul, and not with the mere visual aspect of it.

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... 'tis he whose law is reason; who depends upon that law as on the best of friends; whence, in a state where men are tempted still to evil for a guard against worse ill, and what in quality or act is best doth seldom on a right foundation rest, he labors good on good to fix, and owes to virtue every triumph that he knows: who, if he rise to station of command, rises by open means; and there will stand on honorable terms, or else retire, and in himself possess his own desire; who comprehends his trust, and to the same keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; and therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait for wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; whom they must follow; on whose head must fall, like showers of manna, if they come at all:

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... is he... whose powers shed round him in the common strife, or mild concerns of ordinary life, a constant influence, a peculiar grace; but who, if he be called upon to face some awful moment to which Heaven has joined great issues, good or bad for human kind, is happy as a lover; and attired with sudden brightness, like a man inspired; and, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law in calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; or if an unexpected call succeed, come when it will, is equal to the need: he who, though thus endued as with a sense and faculty for storm and turbulence, is yet a soul whose master-bias leans to homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, are at his heart; and such fidelity it is his darling passion to approve; more brave for this, that he hath much to love:—

~ William Wordsworth

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;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

~ William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

~ William Wordsworth

For I have learnedTo look on nature, not as in the hourOf thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimesThe still, sad music of humanity,Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample powerTo chasten and subdue. And I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts; a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;A motion and a spirit, that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,And rolls through all things. Therefore am I stillA lover of the meadows and the woods,And mountains; and of all that we beholdFrom this green earth; of all the mighty worldOf eye, and ear,—both what they half create,And what perceive; well pleased to recogniseIn nature and the language of the sense,The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soulOf all my moral being.

~ William Wordsworth

The pleasure-house is dust:—behind, before,This is no common waste, no common gloom;But Nature, in due course of time, once moreShall here put on her beauty and her bloom.She leaves these objects to a slow decay,That what we are, and have been, may be known;But at the coming of the milder day,These monuments shall all be overgrown.

~ William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notesWhile in a grove I sate reclined,In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man.

~ William Wordsworth

Rest and be thankful.

~ William Wordsworth

I listen'd, motionless and still;And, as I mounted up the hill,The music in my heart I bore,Long after it was heard no more.

~ William Wordsworth

Society has parted man from man, neglectful of the universal heart.

~ William Wordsworth

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 splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind.

~ William Wordsworth

One moment now may give us moreThan fifty years of reason,Our minds shall drink at every poreThe spirit of the season.

~ William Wordsworth

But thou art with us, with us in the past,The present, with us in the times to come.There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,No languor, no dejection, no dismay,No absence scarcely can there be, for thoseWho love as we do. Speed thee well!

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... 'tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high, conspicuous object in a nation's eye, or left unthought-of in obscurity,— who, with a toward or untoward lot, prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not— plays, in the many games of life, that one where what he most doth value must be won: whom neither shape or danger can dismay, nor thought of tender happiness betray; who, not content that former worth stand fast, looks forward, persevering to the last, from well to better, daily self-surpast: who, whether praise of him must walk the earth for ever, and to noble deeds give birth, or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, and leave a dead unprofitable name— finds comfort in himself and in his cause; and, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws his breath in confidence of Heaven's applause: this is the happy Warrior; this is he that every man in arms should wish to be.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... is the generous Spirit, who, when brought among the tasks of real life, hath wrought upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: whose high endeavors are an inward light that makes the path before him always bright.

~ William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, doomed to go in company with pain, and fear, and bloodshed, miserable train turns his necessity to glorious gain; in face of these doth exercise a power which is our human nature's highest dower: controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves of their bad influence, and their good receives: by objects, which might force the soul to abate her feeling, rendered more compassionate; is placable— because occasions rise so often that demand such sacrifice; more skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, as tempted more; more able to endure, as more exposed to suffering and distress; thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

~ William Wordsworth

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...

~ William Wordsworth

Duty were our games.

~ William Wordsworth