For Students
William Wordsworth: Quotes
- Action
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.
: The Borderers - Birth
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar. - Children and Childhood
The Child is father of the Man.
- Death
The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
: The Excursion - Flowers and Trees
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils. - Flowers and Trees
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. - Kindness
. . . that best portion of a good man's life.
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. - Mercy and Compassion
Worse than idle is compassion
If it ends in tears and sighs. - Nature
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her. - Pain and Suffering
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And shares the nature of infinity.
: The Borderers - Poetry and Poets
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.: Lyrical Ballads
- Sky and Space
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man:
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die! - Taste
Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.
- The World
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! - Wisdom and Sense
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
: The Excursion