William Wordsworth Men Quotations

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

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.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shadeOf that which once was great, is passed away.

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

How men livedEven next-door neighbors, as we say, yet stillStrangers, not knowing each the other's name.

All men feel something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them.

Huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind by day and were trouble to my dreams.

A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy.

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

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men.

Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.

And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.

All men feel a habitual gratitude, and something of an honorable bigotry, for the objects which have long continued to please them.

I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of 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...

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man;

The child is father of the man.

The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

The mind of man is a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells.

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.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trails its wreath; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure; But the least motion which they made, It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can That there was pleasure there. If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The Man of Science, the Chemist and Mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may be the objects with which the Anatomist's knowledge is connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no knowledge.

The child is the father of man.

Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,-air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

Not Chaos, not the darkest pit of lowest Erebus, nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out by help of dreams - can breed such fear and awe as fall upon us often when we look into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars; The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.

The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster child, her inmate man, Forget the glories he hath known And that imperial palace whence he came.

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of images before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed.

When men change swords for ledgers, and desert The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed I had, my Country--am I to be blamed?

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing is solitude

The wealthiest man among us is the best

If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus famliarised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to the aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.

Great men have been among us; hands that penn'd And tongues that utter'd wisdom--better none

the Mind of Man-- My haunt, and the main region of my song.

in the mind of man, A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.

The child shall become father to the man.

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud, And magnify thy name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument, In working out a pure intent.

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.

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

Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.

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 intervene To fashion this ability. 'Tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else 'tis not thine at all.

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident tomorrows.

A great poet ought to a certain degree to rectify men's feelings... to render their feelings more sane, pure and permanent, in short, more consonant to Nature.

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,-render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!

Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.

The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an angel's wing.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away.

Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

I am already kindly disposed towards you. My friendship it is not in my power to give: this is a gift which no man can make, it is not in our own power: a sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circumstance, it will spring up and thrive like a wildflower when these favour, and when they do not, it is in vain to look for it.