Updated April 21, 2022
William Wordsworth quotes on Nature help understand his love and reverence for Nature. “Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher,” is a famous quote of Wordsworth on Nature, among his many. Wordsworth brought in a new era of poetry where Nature was represented, appreciated and coloured with imagination. The ‘Highest Priest of Nature’ is an endorsement to his spiritual admiration of Nature by the literary world. We have gathered several quotes of William Wordsworth on Nature that you will enjoy learning.
William Wordsworth’s Quotes Revering Nature
1. “Nature never did betray, The heart that loved her.”
2. “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.”
3. “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;”
4. “Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.”
5. “Then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.”
6. “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
7. “The Ocean is Mighty harmonist”
8. “How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold”
9. “Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.
10. “Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.”
11. “The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly”.
12. I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
13. “Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect misshapes the beauteous forms of things—We murder to dissect.”
14. “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.”
15. “All things have second birth; the earthquake is not satisfied at once.”
16. “Why do not words and kiss, and solemn pledge, and nature that is kind in woman’s breast, and reason that in man is wise and good, and fear of him who is a righteous Judge – why do not these prevail for human life, to keep two hearts together, that be.” 17. “The silence that is in the starry sky, the sleep that is among the lonely hills.”
18. “The mind of man is a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells.”
19. “Thou unassuming common-place of nature, with that homely face.”
20. “Trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God, who is our home….”
21. “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.”
22. “One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good than all the sages can.”
23. “Therefore, let the moon shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain winds be free to blow against thee.”
24. “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!”
25. “He is by nature led to peace so perfect that the young behold with envy, what the old man hardly feels.”
26. “What though the radiance that was once so bright, be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”
27. “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.”
28. “If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature’s holy plan, have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?”
29. “Therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods, and mountains; And of all that we behold From this green earth.”
30. “One daffodil is worth a thousand pleasures, then one is too few.”
31. “Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children.”
32. “Poetry is the image of man and nature.”
Stature of William Wordsworth as a Poet of Nature is the tallest among the poets. “The Muse of English Poetry” in and a Poet of Nature, is TRUEST alter ego of Wordsworth. The vivid picture of mountains, rocks, rivers and trees in his poems shows his deepest love for the NATURE.
Wordsworth wrote several beautiful poems that characterize his affinity with Nature, including ‘My Hearts Leaps Up’, ‘Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’, ‘I wandered Lonely As A Cloud’, ‘The Solitary Reaper’, just to mention a few. The thoughts of Wordsworth on Nature are indeed awe-inspiring and beautifully communicated.
William Wordsworth Quotes on Love
William Wordsworth once called poetry “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” This demonstrates how much he cherished the art of poetry. He was ‘She Was A Phantom Of Delight’ is one of many famous love poems by William Wordsworth, and ‘The Prelude’ is another memorable love poem by William Wordsworth. We have compiled and list down several William Wordsworth’s lines from his love poems and quotes on love.
1. “There is a comfort in the strength of love; ‘Twill make a thing endurable, which else would overset the brain, or break the heart.”
2. “Love betters what is best”
3. “He speak of love, such love as spirits feel in worlds whose course is equable and pure: No fears to beat away – no strife to heal, the past unsighed for, and the future sure.”
4. “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very heaven.”
5. “What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; Instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells.”
6. “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.”
7. “The earth was all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; And should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way.”
8. “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.”
9. “A cheerful life is what the muses love, a soaring spirit is their prime delight.”
10. “And suddenly all your troubles melt away, all your worries are gone, and it is for no reason other than the look in your partner’s eyes. Yes, sometimes life and love really is that simple.”
11. “She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of dove, a maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love.”
12. “I traveled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee?”
13. “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.”
14. “Love betters what is best.”
15. “Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.”
16. “Sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.”
17. “What know we of the Blest above but that they sing, and that they love? ”
18. “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.”
19. “And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.”
20. Oh, be wise, thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.”
21. “The unconquerable pang of despised love.”
William Wordsworth’s Quotes On Dimensions of Life
Wordsworth, the legendary romantic poet, was not limited to nature alone. Love, life, and memories vividly express his multidimensional approach and sincere inclination towards romanticism. Lets go through some of the quotes of William Wordsworth which stretch across the dimensions of life.
1. “Habit rules the unreflecting herd.”
2. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
3. “Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be.”
4. “Rest and be thankful.”
5. “The music in my heart I bore. Long after it was heard no more.”
6. “A mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”
7. “The best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
8. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
9. “Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop, Than when we soar.”
10. Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.
11. “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven.”
12. “Be mild, and cleave to gentle things, thy glory and thy happiness be there.”
13. “When from our better selves we have too long; Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop; Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired; How gracious, how benign, is Solitude”
14. “The eye–it cannot choose but see;
15. We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where’er they be, Against or with our will.”
16. With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.
17. “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”.
18. “But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.”
19. “In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn’t know what he is doing.”
20. “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
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. “The child is father of the man.”
23. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come.
24. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
25. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.
26. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
William Wordsworth Quotes About Memories
1. And when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, A consciousness remained that it had left Deposited upon the silent shore Of memory images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
2. Memories… images and precious thoughts that shall not die and cannot be destroyed.
3. Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth’s bitter leaven Effaced forever.
4. The memory of the just survives in Heaven.
5. I should dread to disfigure the beautiful ideal of the memories of illustrious persons with incongruous features, and to sully the imaginative purity of classical works with gross and trivial recollections.
Some Popular Lines from William Wordsworth’s Poem
Below are the famous poetry lines by William Wordsworth. These lines are from length and breadth of the poetic canvas of Wordsworth.
1. “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
2. “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.”
3. “O dearest, dearest boy! My heart For better lore would seldom yearn, Could I but teach the hundredth part of what from thee I learn.”
4. “Not chaos, not the darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out by help of dreams – can breed such fear and awe as fall upon us often when we look into our minds, into the mind of man.”
5. “Not in Utopia, subterranean fields, Or some secreted island, heaven knows where! but in the very world, which is the world of all of us, the place wherein the end we find our happiness, or not at all!”
6. “Strongest minds are often those whom the noisy world hears least.”
7. “I had melancholy thoughts… a strangeness in my mind, a feeling that I was not for that hour, nor for that place.”
8. “In sleep, I heard the northern gleams; The stars they were among my dreams; In sleep did I behold the skies.”
9. “To her fair works did nature link, the human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think what man has made of man.”
10. “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge; It is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all science.”
11. “One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, taught both by what she shews, and what conceals, never to blend our pleasure or our pride with sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.”
12. “Where are your books? – that light bequeathed to beings else forlorn and blind! up! up! and drink the spirit breathed from dead men to their kind.”
13. “O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live.”
14. “She died, and left to me this heath, this calm and quiet scene, the memory of what has been, and never more will be.”
15. “And yet the wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.”
16. “Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”
17. “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.”
18. “Books! Tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, how sweet his music! on my life, there’s more of wisdom in it.”
19. “Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge – it is as immortal as the heart of man.” 20. “But that night when on my bed I lay, I was most mov’d and felt most deeply in what world I was; with unextinguish’d taper I kept watch, reading at intervals.”
21. “So that almost a doubt within me springs of providence, such emptiness at length seems at the heart of all things. But, great God! I measure back the steps which I have trod.”
22. “Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark, and has the nature of infinity.”
23. “Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither.”
24. “To be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be without love of human nature.”
25. “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.”
26. “Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares! the poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.”
27. “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 li.”
28. “Feeling comes in aid of feeling, and diversity of strength attends us, if but once we have been strong.”
29. “But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. The storm came on before its time: She wandered up and down, and many a hill did Lucy climb: But never reached the town.”
30. “And, when the stream Which overflowed the soul was passed away, a consciousness remained that it had left, Deposited upon the silent shore of memory, images and precious thoughts That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.”
31. “I’ll teach my boy the sweetest things; I’ll teach him how the owlet sings.”
32. “It was an April morning, fresh and clear, the rivulet, delighting in its strength, ran with a young man’s speed, and yet the voice of waters which the river had supplied was softened down in a vernal tone.”
33. “Rapine, avarice, expense, this is idolatry; And these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more”
34. “We live by admiration, hope, and love; And even as these are well and wisely fixed, in dignity of being we ascend.”
35. “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 wreathed horn.”
36. “A creature not too bright or good, for human nature’s daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.”
37. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers – but like lemmings running headlong to the sea, we are oblivious.”
39. “Where lies the land to which yon Ship must go?”
40. “When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.”
41. “To character and success, two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together . . . humble dependence on God and manly reliance on self.”
42. “What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.”
43. “By our own spirits are we deified: We poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.”
44. “O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader! you would find a tale in everything.”
45. “A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.”
46. “Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea.”
47. “But, why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain?”
48. “In ourselves, our safety must be sought. By our own right hand, it must be wrought.”
49. “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.”
50. “Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair. . . .”
51. “Be mild, and cleave to gentle things, thy glory and thy happiness be there.”
52. “I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Has oftener left me mourning.”
53. “I listen’d, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, the music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more.”