On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of images before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed.

Then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.

one daffodil is worth a thousand pleasures, then one is too few.

Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be.

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

How many undervalue the power of simplicity ! But it is the real key to the heart.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

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

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Strongest minds are often those whom the noisy world hears least.

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.

Out of misery, comes unexpected joy.

There is a big difference between listening to an interesting story and recognizing an important one.

But when I close my eyes, I'm more like THIS under the surface: I'm laughing and scheming and dreaming.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Style means no shield at all. Style means no front at all. Style means ultimate naturalness. Style means one man alone with billions of men about.

Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.

Money in the hand is real - coins and bills. The rest I don't believe in, and I don't think I ever did, really. What's a check, after all, but a promise - mine, the bank's. Me, I know, but the bank?

Love descends upon our souls by the will of God and not by the demand or the plea of the individual.

If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

When we hold back out of laziness, that is when we tie ourselves into knots of boredom.