William Wordsworth Quotes

getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ~ but like lemmings running headlong to the sea, we are oblivious.

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy...

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

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.

This son of his old age was yet more dear — Less from instinctive tenderness, the same
Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all — 145
Than that a child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.

Wild is the music
of autumnal winds
Amongst the faded woods.

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

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

A poet does not see or hear or feel things that others do not see or hear or feel. What makes a person a poet is the ability to recall what she has felt and seen and heard. And to relive it and describe it in such a way that others can then see and feel and hear again what they may have missed.

Feeling comes in aid
Of feeling, and diversity of strength
Attends us, if but once we have been strong.

If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms Of young imagination have kept pure Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is littleness; that he who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used; that thought with him Is in its infancy. The man whose eye Is ever on himself doth look on one, The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou ! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart.

poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.