1. "A deep distress hath humanized my soul."
2. “A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.”
3. “And I have felt
a presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth . . . “
4. “And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.”
5. “And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.”
6. “Another race hath been, and other palms are won,
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
7. “A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.”
8. “A tale is everything.”
9. “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.”
10. “But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?”
11. “But thou, that did'st appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation.”
12. “Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,
Brought from a pensive, though a happy place.”
13. “Eternal, living action works
to recreate the created
so it never rigidifies.
What was not, it must become:
bright suns, coloured worlds,
never can it rest.”
14. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
15. “For 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 favourite be feeble woman's breast.”
16. “Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.”
17. “Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.”
18. “I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me; 'tis falsely said
That even there was intercourse
Between the living and the dead.”
19. ”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;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
The stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth to me the show had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
20. “I was taught to feel, perhaps too much
The self-sufficing power of solitude.”
21. "Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future."
22. ”MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path there be or none,
While a fair region round the traveller lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
—If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way—
Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,—
The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.”
23. “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!”
24. “Of one in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.”
25. “Oh, be wise, Thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.”
26. ”Oh Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
Oh gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.”
27. “O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live.”
28. “Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.”
29. “Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises.”
30. “Plain living and high thinking are no more.”
31. “Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.”
32. “Sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.”
33. “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.”
34. “That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
35. “The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.”
36. “The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.”
37. “The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!”
38. "The mind of Man is fram'd even like the breath / And harmony of music.
There is a dark / Invisible workmanship that reconciles / Discordant
elements, and makes them move / In one society. Ah me! That all /
The terrors, all the miseries [,] / Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, that all
/ The thoughts and feelings which have been infus'd / Into my mind,
should ever have made up / The calm existence that is mine when I
/ Am worthy of myself!"
39. “The mysteries that cups of flowers infold
And all the gorgeous sights which fairies do behold.”
40. “There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness;
The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue,
The thyme her purple, like the blush of Even;
And if the breath of some to no caress
Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view,
All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven.”
41. “There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe,--He saw.”
42. “The very flowers are sacred to the poor.”
43. “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!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.”
44. “Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.”
45. “Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.”
46. “To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
47. “True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.”
48. “We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.”
49. ”What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”
50. “Where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble indez of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”
51. “WITH ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,
Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly vessel did I then espy
Come like a giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the bay she strode,
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.
The ship was nought to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a lover's look;
This ship to all the rest did I prefer:
When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir:
On went she, and due north her journey took.”
52. “Worldings revelling in the fields
Of strenuous idleness.”
