William Wordsworth Quotes

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.

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.

And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,
The self-sufficing power of solitude.

Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things — We murder to dissect.

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

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

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. — But there’s a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have look’d upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

Faith is a passionate intuition.

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

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.

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

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

..........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: