Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, / Whether from breath of outward circumstance, / Or from the Soul--an impulse to herself-- / I would give utterance in numerous verse."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"Of the individual Mind that keeps her own / Inviolate retirement, subject there / To Conscience only, and the law supreme / Of that Intelligence which governs all."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"Not Chaos, not / The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, / Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out / By help of dreams--can breed such fear and awe / As fall upon us often when we look / Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-- / My haunt, and the main region of my song."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"How exquisitely the individual Mind / (And the progressive powers perhaps no less / Of the whole species) to the external World / Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too-- / Theme this but little heard of among men-- / The external World is fitted to the Mind."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: w. 1795-1796, first published 1842

"In these my lonely wanderings I perceived / What mighty objects do impress their forms / To elevate our intellectual being."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

Imagination is "reason in her most exalted mood"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

"This faculty [Imagination/Reason] hath been the feeding source / Of our long labour: we have traced the stream / From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard /Its natal murmur; followed it to light / And open day"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

"My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's / Internal echo of the imperfect sound; / To both I listened, drawing from them both / A cheerful confidence in things to come"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

The poet's mind is "best pleased / While she as duteous as the mother dove / Sits brooding, lives not always to that end, / But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on/ That drive her as in trouble through the groves."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

"I neither seem / To lack that first great gift, the vital soul, / Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort / Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers, / Subordinate helpers of the living mind"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)