88+ Best William Wordsworth Quotes: Exclusive Selection

William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Profoundly inspirational William Wordsworth quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.

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Famous William Wordsworth Quotes

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this. — William Wordsworth

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart. — William Wordsworth

I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more. — William Wordsworth

That blessed mood,In which the burden of the mystery,In which the heavy and the weary weightOf all this unintelligible world,Is lightened. — William Wordsworth

Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. — William Wordsworth

To every Form of being is assigned,Thus calmly spoke the venerable Sage,An active Principle. — William Wordsworth

To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. — William Wordsworth

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; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune. — William Wordsworth

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!Turns his necessity to glorious gain. — William Wordsworth

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;And humble cares, and delicate fears;A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;And love and thought and joy. — William Wordsworth

For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity. — William Wordsworth

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,Through words and things, a dim and perilous way. — William Wordsworth

A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. — William Wordsworth

Stepping westward seemed to be/ A kind of heavenly destiny. — William Wordsworth

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

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. — William Wordsworth

The things which I have seen I now can see no more. — William Wordsworth

We have within ourselvesEnough to fill the present day with joy,And overspread the future years with hope. — William Wordsworth

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is heThat every man in arms should wish to be? — William Wordsworth

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. — William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;And hermits are contented with their cells. — William Wordsworth

Where lies the land to which yon ship must go? — William Wordsworth

Soft is the music that would charm for ever;The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly. — William Wordsworth

Type of the wise who soar but never roam;True to the kindred points of heaven and home. — William Wordsworth

O Nightingale, thou surely art/ A creature of a ‘fiery heart’. — William Wordsworth

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar. — William Wordsworth

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?Where is it now, the glory and the dream? — William Wordsworth

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

Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future. — William Wordsworth

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory. — William Wordsworth

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. — William Wordsworth

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind. — William Wordsworth

She was a phantom of delightWhen first she gleamed upon my sight. — William Wordsworth

O dearest, dearest boy! my heartFor better lore would seldom yearn,Could I but teach the hundredth partOf what from thee I learn. — William Wordsworth

Give unto me, made lowly wise,/ The spirit of self-sacrifice. — William Wordsworth

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. — William Wordsworth

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!/ O Duty! if that name thou love/ Who art a light to guide, a rod/ To check the erring and reprove. — William Wordsworth

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. — William Wordsworth

Where the statue stood/ Of Newton with his prism and silent face,/ The marble index of a mind for ever/ Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone. — William Wordsworth

No human ear shall ever hear me speak;No human dwelling ever give me food,Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild,In search of nothing, that this earth can give,But expiation, will I wander on –A Man by pain and thought compelled to live,Yet loathing life — till anger is appeasedIn Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die. — William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude. — William Wordsworth

We bow our heads before Thee, and we laudAnd magnify thy name, Almighty God! — William Wordsworth

Hence in a season of calm weather/ Though inland far we be,/ Our souls have sight of that immortal sea/ Which brought us hither,/ Can in a moment travel thither,/ And see the children sport upon the shore,/ And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. — William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy — impatient as the windI wished to share the transport. — William Wordsworth

But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave. — William Wordsworth

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars. — William Wordsworth

With Nature never do they wageA foolish strife; they seeA happy youth, and their old ageIs beautiful and free. — William Wordsworth

My days, my friend, are almost gone,My life has been approved,And many love me; but by noneAm I enough beloved. — William Wordsworth

Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. — William Wordsworth

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. — William Wordsworth

To every natural form, rock, fruits, or flower,Even the loose stones that cover the highway,I gave a moral life. — William Wordsworth

For still, the more he works, the moreDo his weak ankles swell. — William Wordsworth

We feel that we are greater than we know. — William Wordsworth

How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold. — William Wordsworth

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,/ As tempted more; more able to endure,/ As more exposed to suffering and distress. — William Wordsworth

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

More like a man/ Flying from something that he dreads than one/ Who sought the thing he loved. — William Wordsworth

The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. — William Wordsworth

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;The charities that soothe, and heal, and blessAre scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers. — William Wordsworth

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity. — William Wordsworth

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

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science. — William Wordsworth

That best portion of a man’s life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. — William Wordsworth

Minds that have nothing to conferFind little to perceive. — William Wordsworth

My brainWorked with a dim and undetermined senseOf unknown modes of being. — William Wordsworth

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

Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf/ Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. — 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

My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky. — William Wordsworth

No Nightingale did ever chant More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebri — William Wordsworth

The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,/ The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:/ And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,/ Has vanished from his lonely hearth. — William Wordsworth

O Reader! had you in your mindSuch stores as silent thought can bring,O gentle Reader! you would findA tale in everything. — William Wordsworth

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

Three years she grew in sun and shower,/ Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower/ On earth was never sown;/ This child I to myself will take;/ She shall be mine, and I will make/ A Lady of my own. — 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

Never to blend our pleasure or our prideWith sorrow of the meanest thing that feels. — William Wordsworth

O’er rough and smooth she trips along,/ And never looks behind;/ And sings a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind. — William Wordsworth

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

Four years and thirty, told this very week,Have I been now a sojourner on earth,And yet the morning gladness is not goneWhich then was in my mind. — William Wordsworth

One in whom persuasion and beliefHad ripened into faith, and faith becomeA passionate intuition. — William Wordsworth

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore of nicely-calculated less or more. — William Wordsworth

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,The work of Fancy, or some happy toneOf meditation, slipping in betweenThe beauty coming and the beauty gone. — William Wordsworth

Plain living and high thinking are no more:The homely beauty of the good old causeIs gone. — William Wordsworth

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

Many are our joysIn youth, but oh! what happiness to liveWhen every hour brings palpable accessOf knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,And sorrow is not there! — William Wordsworth

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!Even yet thou art to meNo bird, but an invisible thing,A voice, a mystery. . . . — 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

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come. — William Wordsworth