William Wordsworth Quotations | Page 2

Written in Early Spring I heard a thousand blended notes While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 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.

When a damp/ Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand/ The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew/ Soul-animating strains - alas, too few!

There is a dark invisible workmanship - that reconciles discordant elements - and makes them move in one society

There is a comfort in the strength of love;'T will make a thing endurable, which elseWould overset the brain, or break the heart. . . .

There is a comfort in the strength of love; 'T will make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart. . . .

Why do not words and kiss, and solemn pledge, And nature that is kind in woman's breast, And reason that in man is wise and good, And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge - Why do not these prevail for human life, To keep two hearts together, that be

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant / Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air / Of absence withers what was once so fair?

Yet sometimes, when the secret cupOf still and serious thought went round,It seemed as if he drank it up --He felt with spirit so profound.

There are in our existence spots of timeThat with distinct pre-eminence retainA renovating virtue, whence . . . our mindsAre nourished and invisibly repaired.

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?Come, blessed barrier between day and day,Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

We must be free or die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice.

But man is thy most awful instrumentIn working out a pure intent.

Turning, for them who pass, the common dustOf servile opportunity to gold.

There is a luxury in self-dispraise;And inward self-disparagement affordsTo meditative spleen a grateful feast.

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books;Or surely you'll grow double. . . .

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?

What is pride? A whizzing rocket that would emulate a star.

Though inland far we be,Our souls have sight of that immortal seaWhich brought us hither.

To humbler functions, awful Power!I call thee: I myself commendUnto thy guidance from this hour;Oh, let my weakness have an end!

To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran. . . .

With gentle handTouch -- for there is a spirit in the woods.

What are fears but voices airy?Whispering harm where harm is not.And deluding the unwaryTill the fatal bolt is shot!

What are fears but voices airy? Whispering harm where harm is not. And deluding the unwary Till the fatal bolt is shot!

Visionary power/ Attends the motions of the viewless winds,/ Embodied in the mystery of words.

We live by admiration, hope and love; and even as these are well and wisely fixed, in dignity of being we ascend

Beloved Vale, I said, When I shall con those many records of my childish years

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!

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

As if the man had fixed his face,In many a solitary place,Against the wind and open sky!

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

A simple child,That lightly draws its breath,And feels its life in every limb,What should it know of death?

And 'tis my faith, that every flowerEnjoys the air it breathes.

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the lawIn calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

And yet not choice but habit rules the unreflecting herd.

And you must love him, ere to youHe will seem worthy of your love.

And, when the streamWhich overflowed the soul was passed away,A consciousness remained that it had left,Deposited upon the silent shoreOf memory, images and precious thoughtsThat shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.

And, when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left, Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory, images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.

Enough, if something from our hands have powerTo live, and act, and serve the future hour.

There's not a nook within this solemn pass/ But were an apt confessional for one/ Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,/ That life is but a tale of morning grass/ Withered at eve.

There's not a manThat lives who hath not known his god-like hours.

The waves beside them danced; but they/ Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:/ A poet could not but be gay,/ In such a jocund company.

The 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.

The sweetest thing that ever grew / Beside a human door!

The tendency, too potent in itself,Of use and custom to bow down the soulUnder a growing weight of vulgar sense,And substitute a universe of deathFor that which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine, and true.

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flowFor old, unhappy, far-off things,And battles long ago.

Science appears but what in truth she is,/ Not as our glory and our absolute boast,/ But as a succedaneum, and a prop/ To our infirmity.

Rapt into still communion that transcends/ The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

O Silence! are Man's noisy yearsNo more than moments of thy life?

Often have I sighed to measureBy myself a lonely pleasure,Sighed to think, I read a bookOnly read, perhaps, by me.

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

The music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more

A day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

A day it was when I could bearTo think, and think, and think again;With so much happiness to spare,I could not feel a pain.

A Creature not too bright or good, For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles

Strange fits of passion have I known:/ And I will dare to tell,/ But in the lover's ear alone,/ What once to me befell.

Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,/ But, as you by their faces see,/ All silent and all damned!

So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,Or let me die!

One great society alone on earth: the noble living and the noble dead

Action is transitory a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle, this way or that 'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed

Action is transitory a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle, this way or that 'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed

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.

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!

And that unless above himself he canErect himself, how poor a thing is man.

A primrose by a river's brimA yellow primrose was to him,And it was nothing more.

A poet who has not produced a good poem before he is twenty-five, we may conclude cannot, and never will do so.

And the most difficult of tasks to keepHeights which the soul is competent to gain.

Another year! - another deadly blow!/ Another mighty empire overthrown!/ And we are left, or shall be left, alone.

Another race hath been, and other palms are won./ Thanks to the human heart by which we live,/ Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,/ To me the meanest flower that blows can give/ Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie/ Couched on the bald top of an eminence.

A youth to whom was givenSo much of earth, so much of heaven.And such impetuous blood.

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,/ And I again am strong.

A slumber did my spirit seal;/ I had no human fears:/ She seemed a thing that could not feel/ The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force;/ She neither hears nor sees;/ Rolled round in earth's diurnal course. . .

This city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum/ Of things forever speaking./ That nothing of itself will come,/ But we must still be seeking?

A man of hope and forward-looking mind/ Even to the last!

There neither is, nor can be, any essential" difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.

I traveled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea: Nor England! Did I know till then What love I bore to thee

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;The Form remains, the Function never dies.

Strongest mindsAre often those of whom the noisy worldHears least.

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense.

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.

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deedsWith coldness still returning;Alas! the gratitude of menHath oftener left me mourning.

Not in Utopia, -- subterranean fields, -- Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, -- the place where in the end We find our happiness, or not at all!

After ten months' melancholy,/ Became a good and honest man.

A perfect woman, nobly planned,To warn, to comfort, and command;And yet a Spirit still, and brightWith something of angelic light.

Small circles glittering idly in the moon,/ Until they melted all into one track/ Of sparkling light.

So build we up the being that we are.

The mightiest lever known to the moral world, imagination.

The intellectual power, through words and things,Went sounding on a dim and perilous way!

The cottage which was named the Evening Star/ Is gone.

In common things that round us lieSome random truths he can impart, --The harvest of a quiet eyeThat broods and sleeps on his own heart.

Impulses of deeper birth have come to him in solitude.

In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

Choice word and measured phrase, above the reachOf ordinary men; a stately speech.

But hushed be every thought that springsFrom out the bitterness of things.

Behold her, single in the field,Yon solitary Highland lass!Reaping and singing by herself;Stop here, or gently pass!

Because the good old ruleSufficeth them, the simple plan,That they should take, who have the power,And they should keep who can.

Characters of the great Apocalypse,/ The types and symbols of Eternity,/ Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.