William Wordsworth Quotes

Go to the poets, they will speak to theeMore perfectly of purer creatures--

~ William Wordsworth

Here must thou be, O man,Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —Here keepest thou thy individual state:No other can divide with thee this work,No secondary hand can interveneTo fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,The prime and vital principle is thineIn the recesses of thy nature, farFrom any reach of outward fellowship,Else 'tis not thine at all.

~ William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...

~ William Wordsworth

What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

In ourselves our safety must be sought. By our own right hand it must be wrought.

~ William Wordsworth

Hence, in a season of calm weatherThough inland far we be,Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

~ William Wordsworth

Is then no nook of English ground secureFrom rash assault?

~ William Wordsworth

Faith is a passionate intuition.

~ William Wordsworth

That best portion of a good man's life His little nameless unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.

~ William Wordsworth

To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran And much it grieved my heart to think What Man has made of Man.

~ William Wordsworth

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident tomorrows.

~ William Wordsworth

Fear is a cloak which old men huddle about their love as if to keep it warm.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

Every great and original writer in proportion as he is great and original must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

~ William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.

~ William Wordsworth

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

~ William Wordsworth

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

~ William Wordsworth

Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

~ William Wordsworth

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

~ William Wordsworth

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

~ William Wordsworth

The ocean is a mighty harmonist.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ 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

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.

~ William Wordsworth

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

~ William Wordsworth

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

~ William Wordsworth

Faith is a passionate intuition.

~ William Wordsworth

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.

~ 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

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth

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

~ William Wordsworth

The child is father of the man.

~ William Wordsworth