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
