Quotes from William Wordsworth

There isOne great society alone on earth:The noble Living and the noble Dead.

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.

Something between a hindrance and a help.

The light that never was, on sea or land,The consecration, and the poet's dream.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty.

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

She was a phantom of delightWhen first she gleamed upon my sight;A lovely apparition, sentTo be a moment's ornament.

A power is passing from the earth.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.

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 wreathèd horn.

Plain living and high thinking are no more:The homely beauty of the good old causeIs gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,And pure religion breathing household laws.

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

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:England hath need of thee: she is a fenOf stagnant waters.

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

Blessed mood,In which the burthen of the mystery,In which the heavy and the weary weightOf all this unintelligible world,Is lightened.

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

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very heaven!

Knowing that Nature never did betrayThe heart that loved her.

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.

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth: So do not let me wear to-night away. Without thee what is all the morning's wealth? Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

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

Scorn not the sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,Mindless of its just honors; with this keyShakespeare unlocked his heart.

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.