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Home  »  Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men  »  William Wordsworth

S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

William Wordsworth

  • [An English poet; born at Cockermouth, April 7, 1770; educated at Cambridge; began his literary career, 1793; settled at Grasmere, 1799; wrote “The Prelude,” 1805; moved to Rydal Mount, 1813; published “The Excursion,” 1814; appointed distributor of stamps, 1813; succeeded Southey as poet-laureate, 1843; died April 23, 1850.]
  • Poetry is only the eloquence and enthusiasm of religion.

  • “The true poet,” he said, “ascends to receive knowledge; he descends to impart it.”
  • He remarked of “The Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” “It is almost the only instance where Gray deviated into nature.”
  • I would not give up the mists that spiritualize our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy.

  • “He who has Nature for his companion,” declared Wordsworth, “must in some sense be ennobled by the intercourse.”
  • Truth takes no account of centuries.

    How men undervalue the power of simplicity, but it is the real key to the heart.