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The primal duties shine aloft, like stars:
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless
Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.

— William Wordsworth The Excursion (1814)

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More quotes by William Wordsworth

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)

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

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The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Wordsworth (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.