Quotes from William Wordsworth

Mighty is the charm Of these abstractions to a mind beset With images, and haunted by herself And specially delightful unto me Was that clear synthesis built up aloft So gracefully.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

we should see the earth Unthwarted in her wish to recompense The industrious

So that almost a doubt within me springs   Of Providence, such emptiness at length   Seems at the heart of all things. But, great God!   I measure back the steps which I have trod

The Man of Science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and love it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion.

the hope Of active days urged on by flying hours,—

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

By all means sometimes be alone; salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; dare to look in thy chest; and tumble up and down what thou findest there.

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants...

Imagination, which in truth Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason, in her most exalted mood.

How Nature by extrinsic passion first / Peopled my mind with beauteous forms or grand' (Book I.)

My gentle Reader, I perceive, How patiently you've waited, And now I fear that you expect Some tale will be related. O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in every thing. What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it: It is no tale; but, should you think, Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

Resigned to vacant musing, Unreproved neglect of all things And deliberate holiday.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke: the faith and morals hold which Milton held.

Yet in the agony of my spirit in surrendering such a treasure I feel a thousand times richer than if I had never possessed it.

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 behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

We'll talk of sunshine and of song, And summer days, when we were young; Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.

No other than the very heart of man, As found among the best of those who live-- Not unexalted by religious faith, Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few-- In Nature's presence: thence may I select Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight; And miserable love, that is not pain To hear of, for the glory that redounds Therefrom to human kind, and what we are.

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 e'er prevail against us, or disturb / Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold / Is full of blessings.

The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

Oh, be wise, thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

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

They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils