330 quotes
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream.
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
All men feel something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
— A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
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.
A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.
I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
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!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)
And 't is my faith, that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is.
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
Oh, be wise, Thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees.