“Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,Is littleness; that he, who feels contemptFor any living thing, hath facultiesWhich he has never used; that thought with himIs in its infancy...”

“Upon Westminster BridgeEarth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!”

“A simple child. That lightly draws its breath. And feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death?”

“What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.”

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we come”

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and its fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”