 |
Action(s)
|
|
Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
|
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 Borderers, Act III
|
|
Age
|
|
|
But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
|
The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Art
|
|
|
Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Baby, Babies
|
|
|
Mark the babe not long accustomed to this breathing world; One that hath barely learned to shape a smile, though yet irrational of soul, to grasp with tiny finger -- to let fall a tear; And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves, To stretch his limbs, becoming, as might seem. The outward functions of intelligent man.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Birds
|
|
|
Happier of happy though I be, like them I cannot take possession of the sky, mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there, one of a mighty multitude whose way and motion is a harmony and dance magnificent.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
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 comet from afar: not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Children
|
|
|
The child is the father of the man.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
|
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art.
-William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 1807
|
|
City Life, Cities
|
|
|
This city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Contentment
|
|
|
That blessed mood in which the burthen of the mystery, in which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world is lightened.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Death
|
|
|
No motion has she now, no force; she neither hears nor sees; rolled around in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Defeat
|
|
|
For by superior energies; more strict affiance in each other; faith more firm in their unhallowed principles, the bad have fairly earned a victory over the weak, the vacillating, inconsistent good.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Dreams
|
|
|
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Drugs
|
|
|
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
|
|
Flowers
|
|
|
The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Freedom
|
|
|
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
|
|
Friends
|
|
|
I am already kindly disposed towards you. My friendship it is not in my power to give: this is a gift which no man can make, it is not in our own power: a sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circumstance, it will spring up and thrive like a wildflower when these favour, and when they do not, it is in vain to look for it.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Generosity
|
|
|
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore of nicely-calculated less or more.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
God
|
|
|
Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Golf
|
|
|
A day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Goodness
|
|
|
That best portion of a good man's life; His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
Kindness
|
|
|
The best portion of a good man's life is in his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
-William Wordsworth
|
|
|
The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.
-William Wordsworth
|
Books by and about William Wordsworth