1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth Quotes
page 2

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 .

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. April 1770 – 23. April 1850   •   Other names Уильям Вордсворт, ویلیام وردزورث
William Wordsworth photo
William Wordsworth: 306   quotes 36   likes

William Wordsworth Quotes

“Yet sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.”

William Wordsworth

Matthew.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Secret

“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 book The Prelude

Bk. VI, l. 603.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

Hope , Home , Effort , Heart

“A youth to whom was given
So much of earth—so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Ruth, st. 21 (1799).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Youth

“The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.”

William Wordsworth

Presentiments.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.”

William Wordsworth

It Is Not to Be Thought Of, l. 11 (1807).

Faith

“A brotherhood of venerable trees.”

William Wordsworth

Sonnet. Composed at ____ Castle, l. 6.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)

Tree

“To be a Prodigal's favourite,—then, worse truth,
A Miser's pensioner,—behold our lot!”

William Wordsworth

The Small Celandine.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth

“The fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.”

William Wordsworth

Source: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

World , Heart

“There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore.”

William Wordsworth

Yew-Trees, l. 1 (1803).

Tree

“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

A Poet!—He Hath Put His Heart to School, l. 9 (1842).

Love , Flowers , Freedom

“A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.”

William Wordsworth

From the Dark Chambers of Dejection Freed, l. 13 (1814).

Love , Life

“Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour.”

William Wordsworth

The River Duddon, sonnet 34 - Afterthought, l. 10 (1820).

Future

“True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.”

William Wordsworth

To ____ . (Let other Bards of Angels sing), st. 3 (1824).

Beauty , Lovers , Heart

“A day
Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. IV, l. 377.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

“O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 3.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

“Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. I, l. 340.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

Music

“A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.”

William Wordsworth

Stanzas written in Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“A remnant of uneasy light.”

William Wordsworth

The Matron of Jedborough.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Light

“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.”

William Wordsworth

Three years she grew in Sun and Shower.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Secret , Beauty , Star , Dance

“Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?
Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day,
Festively she puts forth in trim array.”

William Wordsworth

Where Lies the Land, l. 1 (1806).

“Mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is Love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.”

William Wordsworth Laodamia

Stanza 14.
Laodamia (1814)

Love , Star , Sun

“Thought and theory must precede all action that moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.”

William Wordsworth

Attributed by Anna Jameson in her A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories and Fancies (1854).

“A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene,—how lovely 'tis
Thou seest,—and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that time,
When nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those Beings to whose minds,
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world and human life appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh,
Inly disturbed, to think that others felt
What he must never feel: and so, lost Man!
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale
He died,—this seat his only monument.”

William Wordsworth

Lines (1795)

Love , Life , Pleasure , World

“O Blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?”

William Wordsworth

To the Cuckoo, st. 1 (1804).

Bird

“The bane of all that dread the Devil.”

William Wordsworth

The Idiot Boy.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 3.
She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

Perfection

“The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me,—her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.”

William Wordsworth Peter Bell

Prologue, stanza 27.
Peter Bell (1798)

Tear

“Huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. I, l. 398.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

Men , Dreams

“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 book Lyrical Ballads

Preface.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Beauty

“A famous man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy.”

William Wordsworth

Rob Roy's Grave, st. 1.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)

Joy

“Babylon,
Learned and wise, hath perished utterly,
Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh
That would lament her.”

William Wordsworth

Part I, No. 25 - Missions and Travels.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

Learning

“He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the song,—the song for me!”

William Wordsworth

O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art, l. 17 (1807).

Love , Faith

“A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 8.
A Poet's Epitaph (1799)

“A Briton even in love should be
A subject, not a slave!”

William Wordsworth

Ere with Cold Beads of Midnight Dew.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love

“Action is transitory—a step, a blow—
The motion of a muscle—this way or that—
'Tis done; and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed.”

William Wordsworth

The White Doe of Rylstone, l. 1 (1807).

Men , Way

“The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!”

William Wordsworth Peter Bell

Part I, stanza 15.
Peter Bell (1798)

Heart

“Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees.”

William Wordsworth

To the Same Flower (the Daisy), st. 2 (1805).

“Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.”

William Wordsworth

Poems Composed or Suggested During a Tour in the Summer of 1833, "There!" said a Stripling, l. 10 (1833).

Love , Flowers , Nature , Happiness

“Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind.”

William Wordsworth

Surprised by Joy, l. 1 (1815).

Joy

“Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
Frozen by distance.”

William Wordsworth

Address to Kilchurn Castle.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

The Fountain, st. 8 & 9 (1799).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Age , Tear , Heart

“Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!”

William Wordsworth

To a Skylark, st. 2 (1825).

Home

“A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed.”

William Wordsworth

Hart-leap Well, part ii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Time

“Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source,
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

Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sleep

“A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Then all the pride of intellect and thought?”

William Wordsworth

Alas! What Boots the Long Laborious Quest?, l. 11 (1809).

Strong

“Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 2.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html (1804)

Way , Star

“I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.”

William Wordsworth

I Travelled Among Unknown Men, st. 1 (1799).

Love , Men , Travel , Sea

“Those old credulities, to Nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of history?”

William Wordsworth

Memorials of a Tour in Italy, iv
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

History , Nature

“Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray.”

William Wordsworth

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 72.

Happiness

“The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!”

William Wordsworth

The Italian Itinerant.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Thinking