William Wordsworth

The Gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.

Every great poet is a teacher; I wish to be considered as a teacher, or as nothing.

What we have loved, Others will love, and we will leave behind Powers that will work for them, strong masters there.

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.

The mind of man is framed even like the breath And harmony of music.

Nature never did betray The heart that loved her.

The deepest things that we can learn are things that we have felt.

Strongest minds Are ever those of whom the noisy world Hears least.

The human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants.

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: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that 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, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings.

By words the mind is winged.

What is a Poet? To whom does he address himself? And what object hath he proposed to himself?

The common growth of mother-earth Suffices me—her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears.

Books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good.

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction.

By our own spirits are we mightily upheld.

I have no doubt that, in the present state of society, a Poet, by the very act of writing in metre, does in some degree separate himself from the mass of men, and from their immediate sympathy.

And the older a man gets, the more does he learn that he is not a man, but an ape.

To be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in proportion to the degree in which one is so, is to be without love of human nature, and without reverence for God.

The eye—it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will.