William Wordsworth: Thought

William Wordsworth was English Romantic poet. Explore interesting quotes on thought.
William Wordsworth: 612 quotes36 likes

“From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.”

William Wordsworth

Guilt and Sorrow, st. 41 (1791-1794) Section XL
Context: From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.

“O be wiser, thou !
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.”

William Wordsworth

Lines (1795)
Context: If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

William Wordsworth

Intimations of Immortality Stanza 11.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 3.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)
Context: And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills;

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and its fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

William Wordsworth

Source: Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood

“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)

“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 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).

“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.

“Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, Should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 4.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

“Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!”

William Wordsworth

To Sleep (A Flock of Sheep), l. 13 (1806).

“But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things.”

William Wordsworth

Elegiac Stanzas. Addressed to Sir G.H.B., st. 7 (1824).

“In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines Written in Early Spring, st. 1 (1798).

“We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.”

William Wordsworth

To the Daisy.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

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

“Where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. III, l. 60.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

“Who he was
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.—He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed.
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn,—against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude.”

William Wordsworth

Lines (1795)

“Where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.”

William Wordsworth

Part III, No. 43 - Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

“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 The Sparrow's Nest

The Sparrow's Nest, st. 2 (1801).