All Quotes

"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."

"Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go? Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day, Festively she puts forth in trim array."

"Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!"

"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."

"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."

"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea."

"Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not."

"Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty."

"Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great, is passed away."

"Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind."

"Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters."

"Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness."

"We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held."

"He sang of love, with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the song,—the song for me!"

"Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice."

"Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

"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."

"A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day Then all the pride of intellect and thought?"

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

"A cheerful life is what the Muses love, A soaring spirit is their prime delight."

"But shapes that come not at an earthly call, Will not depart when mortal voices bid."

"Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind."

"And beauty, for confiding youth, Those shocks of passion can prepare That kill the bloom before its time; And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most resplendent hair."

"Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour."

"Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know."

"The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly."

"Lives there a man whose sole delights Are trivial pomp and city noise, Hardening a heart that loathes or slights What every natural heart enjoys?"

"A soul so pitiably forlorn, If such do on this earth abide, May season apathy with scorn, May turn indifference to pride; And still be not unblest—compared With him who grovels, self-debarred From all that lies within the scope Of holy faith and christian hope; Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost."

"But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things."

"True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved."

"Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!"

"Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart"

"Ocean is a mighty harmonist."

"These feeble and fastidious times."

"Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour Have passed away; less happy than the one That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove The tender charm of poetry and love."

"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun."

"One solace yet remains for us who came Into this world in days when story lacked Severe research, that in our hearts we know How, for exciting youth's heroic flame, Assent is power, belief the soul of fact."

"How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold."

"Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive."

"Thought and theory must precede all action that moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory."

"There's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon; But through the clouds I'll never float Until I have a little Boat, Shaped like the crescent-moon."

"The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me,—her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears."

"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more."

"The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witchery of the soft blue sky!"

"On a fair prospect some have looked, And felt, as I have heard them say, As if the moving time had been A thing as steadfast as the scene On which they gazed themselves away."

"As if the man had fixed his face, In many a solitary place, Against the wind and open sky!"

"The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure ... Nor let this necessity ... be considered as a degradation of the Poet’s art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe, an acknowledgment the more sincere because not formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love; further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows and feels and lives and moves … Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science ... In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, — in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time ... Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge — it is as immortal as the heart of man."

"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."

"A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."

"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!"