William Wordsworth

"The imagination is the beginning of creation."

"To know thyself is to possess the key to all mysteries."

"In the eyes of a friend, we see our truest reflection."

"The strength of character is forged in the furnace of adversity."

"The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind."

"We live by admiration, hope, and love; and even as these are well or ill directed, we are elevated or debase ourselves."

"The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."

"How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely flower is born of good."

"There is a comfort in the strength of love; it will make a thing endurable, which else would overwhelm the heart."

"Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out."

"The eye sees not itself, but by reflection from some other thing."

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting."

"To begin, begin; for the beginning is the most important part of the work."

"The human soul finds its highest good in the union with the divine."

"What is freedom? It is the power to act; and we are but poorly free if we lack the vigor to exert our power."

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven."

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."

"In every conceivable manner, the work of a man is a portraiture of himself."

"Knowledge for its own sake is the highest good; it is the basis of all virtue and all happiness."

"There are times when the most ordinary places become extraordinary through the lens of attention."

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory and is never anything else."

"Emotion recollected in tranquility is the essence of poetry."

"The grand elementary principle of pleasure—by which man knows life."

"We rise by understanding the height to which our spirits can soar."

"Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is a triumph of some enthusiasm."

"Nature never wears the same expression twice, for her passion are infinite."

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is labor."

"The heart that has truly loved never forgets, but as faithfully cherishes the memory of the past."

"In the violation of the laws of Nature we see the passions of man most strongly displayed."

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom, but with all thy getting, get understanding."