William Wordsworth Quotes & Sayings

What we have loved
Others will love
And we will teach them how. — William Wordsworth

Wisdom sits with children round her knees. — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

[Mathematics] is an independent world created out of pure intelligence. — William Wordsworth

The earth was all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. — William Wordsworth

That to this mountain-daisy's self were known The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown On the smooth surface of this naked stone! — William Wordsworth

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

The weight of sadness was in wonder lost. — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created,comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain those busy cares that would allay my pain;
Oh! Leave me to myself, nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop again. — William Wordsworth

To be young was very heaven! — William Wordsworth

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. — William Wordsworth

A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light — William Wordsworth

Books are yours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will: — William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, with a natural instinct to discern what knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; abides by this resolve, and stops not there, but makes his moral being his prime care. — William Wordsworth

Faith is, necessary to explain anything, and to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil. — William Wordsworth

we should see the earth Unthwarted in her wish to recompense The industrious, — William Wordsworth

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

Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams. — William Wordsworth

May books and nature be their early joy! — William Wordsworth

Stop thinking for once in your life! — William Wordsworth

Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live! — William Wordsworth

As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accursed An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed. — William Wordsworth

Chains tie us down by land and sea; And wishes, vain as mine, may be All that is left to comfort thee. — William Wordsworth

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yielded proof that they were born for immortality. — William Wordsworth

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,
Musing is solitude — William Wordsworth

It is the 1st mild day of March. Each minute sweeter than before ... there is a blessing in the air. — William Wordsworth

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine
A being breathing thoughtful breath
A traveler betwixt life and death
The reason firm the temperate will
Endurance Foresight Strength and skill — William Wordsworth

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth. — William Wordsworth

Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour Have passed away; less happy than the one That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove The tender charm of poetry and love. — William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair. — William Wordsworth

To be a Prodigal's favourite,-then, worse truth, A Miser's pensioner,-behold our lot! — William Wordsworth

And in thy voice I catch the language of my former heart, and read my former pleasures in the shooting lights of thy wild eyes. — William Wordsworth

The Mind of Man
My haunt, and the main region of my song. — William Wordsworth

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray. — William Wordsworth

Mark the babe not long accustomed to this breathing world; One that hath barely learned to shape a smile, though yet irrational of soul, to grasp with tiny finger - to let fall a tear; And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves, To stretch his limbs, becoming, as might seem. The outward functions of intelligent man. — William Wordsworth

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

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? — William Wordsworth

...The happy Warrior... 'tis he whose law is reason; who depends upon that law as on the best of friends; whence, in a state where men are tempted still to evil for a guard against worse ill, and what in quality or act is best doth seldom on a right foundation rest, he labors good on good to fix, and owes to virtue every triumph that he knows: who, if he rise to station of command, rises by open means; and there will stand on honorable terms, or else retire, and in himself possess his own desire; who comprehends his trust, and to the same keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; and therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait for wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; whom they must follow; on whose head must fall, like showers of manna, if they come at all: — William Wordsworth

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable. — William Wordsworth

A power is passing from the earth. — William Wordsworth

Strongest minds are often those whom the noisy world hears least. — William Wordsworth

One interior life in which all beings live with God, themselves are God, existing in the mighty whole, indistinguishable as the cloudless east is from the cloudless west, when all the hemisphere is one cerulean blue. — William Wordsworth

Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life. — William Wordsworth

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

CHARACTER of the HAPPY WARRIOR. Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he Whom every Man in arms should wish to be? - It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That make the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 10 But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doom'd to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! — William Wordsworth

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out. — William Wordsworth

Such views the youthful Bard allure,
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
'Till peace go with him to the tomb.
- And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come tomorrow? — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

The hope Of active days urged on by flying hours, - — William Wordsworth

Free as a bird to settle where I will. — William Wordsworth

The eye
it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will. — William Wordsworth

Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more. — William Wordsworth

Nature's old felicities. — William Wordsworth

The pleasure-house is dust: - behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common gloom;
But Nature, in due course of time, once more
Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

She leaves these objects to a slow decay,
That what we are, and have been, may be known;
But at the coming of the milder day,
These monuments shall all be overgrown. — William Wordsworth

Go to the poets, they will speak to thee
More perfectly of purer creatures
— William Wordsworth

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling. — William Wordsworth

Tis said, fantastic ocean doth enfold The likeness of whate'er on land is seen. — William Wordsworth

That kill the bloom before its time, And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most resplendent hair. — William Wordsworth

The Poet, gentle creature as he is, Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times; His fits when he is neither sick nor well, Though no distress be near him but his own Unmanageable thoughts. — William Wordsworth

There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast. — William Wordsworth

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round, It seemed as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound. — William Wordsworth

And what if thou, sweet May, hast known
Mishap by worm and blight;
If expectations newly blown
Have perished in thy sight;
If loves and joys, while up they sprung,
Were caught as in a snare;
Such is the lot of all the young,
However bright and fair. — William Wordsworth

Alas! how little can a moment show Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays: A face o'er which a thousand shadows go! — William Wordsworth

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

Therefore, let the moon shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty-mountain winds be free to blow against thee. — William Wordsworth

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

As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay. — William Wordsworth

Before us lay a painful road, And guidance have I sought in duteous love From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way Each takes in this high matter, all may move Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day. — William Wordsworth

The childhood of today is the manhood of tomorrow — William Wordsworth

To character and success, two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together ... humble dependence on God and manly reliance on self. — William Wordsworth

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them. — William Wordsworth

I cannot paint what then I was. — William Wordsworth

This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed. — William Wordsworth

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; — William Wordsworth

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society. — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

A genial hearth, a hospitable board, and a refined rusticity. — William Wordsworth

Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health! — William Wordsworth

A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow rose was to him.
And it was nothing more — William Wordsworth

To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye. — William Wordsworth

Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with: they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts. If words be not (recurring to a metaphor before used) an incarnation of the thought but only a clothing for it, then surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those poisoned vestments, read of in the stories of superstitious times, which had power to consume and to alienate from his right mind the victim who put them on. Language, if it do not uphold, and feed, and leave in quiet, like the power of gravitation or the air we breathe, is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at work to derange, to subvert, to lay waste, to vitiate, and to dissolve. — William Wordsworth

He who feels contempt for any living thing hath faculties that he hath never used, and thought with him is in its infancy. — William Wordsworth

But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant — William Wordsworth

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food. — William Wordsworth

Now when the primrose makes a splendid show, And lilies face the March-winds in full blow, And humbler growths as moved with one desire Put on, to welcome spring, their best attire, Poor Robin is yet flowerless; but how gay With his red stalks upon this sunny day! — William Wordsworth

The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witchery of the soft blue sky! — William Wordsworth

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. — William Wordsworth

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; / Look up a second time, and, one by one, / You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, / And wonder how they could elude the sight! — William Wordsworth

Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago. — William Wordsworth

Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark. — William Wordsworth

Whether we be young or old,Our destiny, our being's heart and home,Is with infinitude, and only there;With hope it is, hope that can never die,Effort and expectation, and desire,And something evermore about to be. — William Wordsworth

In truth the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is — William Wordsworth

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

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly. — William Wordsworth

Prompt to move but firm to wait - knowing things rashly sought are rarely found. — William Wordsworth

Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness — William Wordsworth

He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own. — William Wordsworth

The Reverie of Poor Susan
AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes! — William Wordsworth