873 Quotes by 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.

When from our better selves we have too longBeen parted by the hurrying world, and droop,Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,How gracious, how benign, is Solitude

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,Are a substantial world, both pure and good:Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

Here must thou be, O man,Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —Here keepest thou thy individual state:No other can divide with thee this work,No secondary hand can interveneTo fashion this ability. 'Tis thine,The prime and vital principle is thineIn the recesses of thy nature, farFrom any reach of outward fellowship,Else 'tis not thine at all.

She was a Phantom of delightWhen first she gleam'd upon my sight;A lovely Apparition, sentTo be a moment's ornament:Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;But all things else about her drawnFrom May-time and the cheerful dawn;A dancing shape, an image gay,To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

The eye--it cannot choose but see;We cannot bid the ear be still;Our bodies feel, where'er they be,Against or with our will.

For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden WaysShe dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove,A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love:A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye!—Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be;But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

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