William Wordsworth quotes
William Wordsworth (1770–1850): English Romantic poet. The library holds 275 quotes by William Wordsworth, drawn from The Excursion, Ode. Intimations of Immortality, Peter Bell and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: nature, life, faith, time, happiness, love
The best-known William Wordsworth quotes
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Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
To a Child. Written in her Album -
A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.
Peter Bell, Part i. Stanza 12 -
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.
Personal Talk, Stanza 3 -
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 Excursion, Book ix -
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!—The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.
Personal Talk, Stanza 4 -
True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.
To—-. Let other Bards of Angels sing -
Type of the wise who soar but never roam, True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
To a Skylark -
The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.
It is a beauteous Evening -
A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways -
To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality, Stanza 11 -
Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.
Yes, Thou art Fair -
But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.
Elegiac Stanzas. Addressed to Sir G. H. B -
Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice; Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye, Frozen by distance.
Address to Kilchurn Castle -
The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on a dim and perilous way!
The Excursion, Book iii -
We must be free or die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.
It is not to be thought of -
The good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.
Rob Roy’s Grave -
’Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer’s temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.
Weak is the Will of Man -
But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.
To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature -
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel no self-reproach.
The Old Cumberland Beggar -
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
Ode to Duty -
The child is father of the man.
My heart leaps up when I behold -
Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.
To a Butterfly. I’ve watched you now a full half-hour -
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away.
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic -
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.
Expostulation and Reply -
One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.
The Excursion, Book iv -
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.
Character of the Happy Warrior -
That best portion of a good man’s life,—His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey -
The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
Laodamia -
But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Part iii. vii. Persecution of the Scottish -
The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.
The Excursion, Bk. I -
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
Lines written in Early Spring -
Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.
O Friend! I know not which way I must look -
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar.
The Excursion, Book iii -
The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.
The Solitary Reaper -
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours.
Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part i. xxxiii -
As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!
The Old Cumberland Beggar -
The light that never was, on sea or land; The consecration, and the Poet’s dream.
Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Stanza 4 -
But shapes that come not at an earthly call Will not depart when mortal voices bid.
Dion -
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!
The Prelude, Book xi -
She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh The difference to me!
She dwelt among the untrodden ways -
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St. Mary’s Lake Float double, swan and shadow!
Yarrow Unvisited -
The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!
The Cock is crowing -
Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o’erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.
Laodamia -
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Hart-leap Well, Part ii -
And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore.
The Fountain -
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
The Tables Turned -
As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low.
Resolution and Independence, Stanza 4 -
The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witchery of the soft blue sky!
Peter Bell, Part i. Stanza 15 -
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?
The Tables Turned -
Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.
The Tables Turned -
The thought of our past years in me doth breed perpetual benediction.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality, Stanza 9 -
Two voices are there: one is of the sea, One of the mountains,—each a mighty voice.
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland -
How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg -
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Character of the Happy Warrior -
Lady of the Mere, Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.
A Narrow Girdle of Bough Stones -
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold.
Desultory Stanza -
The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality, Stanza 2 -
“What is good for a bootless bene?” With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is of no avail?
Force of Prayer -
A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.
Alas! what boots the long laborious Quest? -
Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. iii., xliii
Where these quotes come from
- The Excursion (21 quotes)
- Ode. Intimations of Immortality (10 quotes)
- Peter Bell (7 quotes)
- Ode to Duty (6 quotes)
- Laodamia (6 quotes)
- Resolution and Independence (6 quotes)
- Character of the Happy Warrior (5 quotes)
- Personal Talk (4 quotes)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .