Power

The price of power is responsibility for the public good.
~ Winthrop Williams Aldrich

Keep your working power at its maximum.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, The School of Life (1881). Rules in the School

[W]ords and pictures can work together to communicate more powerfully than either alone.
~ William Albert Allard, The Photographic Essay (American Photographer Master Series, 1989).

The Will current is running along the psychic wires, and all that it is necessary to do is to raise the mental trolley-pole and bring down the power for your use. And the supply is unlimited, for your little storage battery is connected with the great powerhouse of the Universal Will Power, and the power is inexhaustible.
~ William Walker Atkinson, Thought Vibration, or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World (1906). Chapter V: The Secret Of The Will

There exists in nature a dynamic mental principle -- a mind-power -- pervading all space -- immanent in all things manifesting in an infinite variety of forms, degrees, and phases.
~ William Walker Atkinson, Mind Power: The Secret of Mental Magic (1908). Chapter I: The Mental Dynamo

The crimes of history may be briefly summed up in the words, — Abuse of Power.
~ William Bailie, Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist (1906). The Anarchist Spirit

Eternal Power!
Grant me, through obvious clouds, one transient gleam
Of thy bright essence in my dying hour.
~ William Beckford, A Prayer

There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it's not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.
~ Bill Belichick, Pro Football Weekly (3 February 2002). There's no 'I' in 'team': Belichick's Patriots rally around wolfpack

Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.
~ William J. Bennett

I suppose power is the thing that everyone desires to exercise. I too, but ... the power of knowledge and experience seems the only thing worth having.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Beveridge, Power and Influence (1955). Chapter I: From Oxford to Whitechapel

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

The people who are worthy of being a leader of others will never complain about the stupidity of their helpers, the ingratitude of human beings, or the inappreciation of the public. They are all a part of the great game of life. To meet them and overcome them and not go down before them in disgust, discouragement, or defeat, that is the final proof of power.
~ William J.H. Boetcker

San Francisco voters have spoken. ... They want cleaner, greener sources of energy that reduce our reliance on polluting power generated out of the area. San Francisco, is once again taking the lead in the country.
~ Willie L. Brown, Jr., KTVU News (21 November 2002). Crowd Comes Together To Kick Off Moscone Solar Project

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear
The sword of power, a nation's trust!
~ William Cullen Bryant, The Death of Lincoln. Stanza 1

There is a power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, --
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). To a Waterfowl (originally printed in the North American Review: 1817; written in 1815)

I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., Up from Liberalism (1959).

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.
~ William S. Burroughs, in The Job: Interviews With William S. Burroughs (1969). Prisoners of the Earth Come Out

Ideals were not archaic things, beautiful and impotent; they were the real sources of power among men. As long as that was true, and now he knew it was true -- he had come all this way to find out -- he had no quarrel with Destiny.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, One of Ours (1922). Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On". Chapter XIV

Composure is often the highest result of power.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from Discourses (1832). Discourse VI

[I]n reverential sympathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of power within.
~ William Ellery Channing, Sermon, Newport, RI (1836).

Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.
~ William Ellery Channing, Address Delivered Before The Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia (1841). The Present Age

Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us as in the power of bringing it out.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

The essence of spiritual freedom is power.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Discourse Preached at the Annual Election (26 May 1830). Spiritual Freedom

Imagination is the ruler of our dreams: let Reason be the ruler of our waking thoughts.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Horæ otiosæ; or, Thoughts, Maxims, and Opinions (1833). Part V. On Fancy and Imagination

Money is said to be power, which is, in some cases, true; and the same may be said of knowledge; but superior sobriety, industry and activity, are a still more certain source of power; for without these, knowledge is of little use; and, as to the power that money gives, it is that of brute force, it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen.
~ William Cobbett, Advice to Young Men: And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (1829). Letter I: To A Youth

There's a glow that follows conquest of any kind; the mere call of the will to action brings a sense of power in the heart.
~ Will Levington Comfort, The Hive (1918). Conquest of Fears

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
~ William Cowper, There is a Fountain Filled With Blood (1772).

The appointing power of the pope is treated as a public trust.
~ William W. (W.W.) Crapo, (1881).

Some philosophers have placed the origin of Power, in the Admiration, either of surpassing form, great valor, or superior understanding.
~ Sir William Davenant

The statistical method is more than an array of techniques. The statistical method is a Mode of thought; it is Sharpened Thinking; it is Power.
~ W. Edwards Deming, Presentation at the International Statistical Institute (September 1953)

[A]ll power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy. Industrial power should be decentralized. It should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), United States v. Columbia Steel Co. et al., 334 U.S. 495 (1948)

[T]hose in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike.
~ William Orville Douglas, Points of Rebellion (1969). A Start Towards Reconstructing Our Society

Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.
~ William Orville Douglas, We the Judges (1956).

Who lives merrily he lives mightily.
~ William Dunbar

And I marvel at the subsuming power of life. As living forms we carry the fossils of our future within us, the unconscious element, ignored in our passion for objectivity, inexplicably to survive.
~ William Everson (aka Brother Antoninus), in The Alpine Christ and Other Poems (1974). Commentary and Notes

There is a power much greater than you or I. It's also your life force. To the extent that you connect with this power, life works.
~ Bill Ferguson

It is action and example, a full live fully lived out, that has power over mankind.
~ William Henry Fremantle, Christian Ordinances and Social Progress: Being the William Belden Noble Lectures for 1900 (1901). I. The Church System

[P]ower tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations -- to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work.
~ J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (1966).

We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
~ J. William Fulbright, (on Senate's right to change its mind), in Time Magazine (4 February 1952).

[T]ell them the truth, then, not that power corrupts men; but men corrupt power.
~ William Gaddis, The Recognitions (1955).

[I]f I cannot realize my Ideal, I can at least idealize my Real.
~ William Channing Gannett, Blessed Be Drudgery: And Other Papers (1890). Blessed Be Drudgery: III

Crimes and vices are evils to the community; but it behooves a free people never to forget that they have more to fear from the growth of the one vice of arbitrary power in government than from all the other vices and crimes combined. It debases everybody, and brings in its train all of the vices.
~ William Jay Gaynor, in The North American Review (January 1903). Our Lawless Police

We are witnessing and sharing in tremendous developments in the field of electronics. Many developments we know and many are yet to be explored. If this great universal knowledge and force can be employed in mechanical progress and development, surely it will work for and through us as human beings, for we are the most awe-inspiring piece of machinery ever devised and our aliveness, our self, is the very essence of electronic force.
~ William E. Gray, Know Your Magnetic Field (1947). Conclusion

The US financial position is rapidly deteriorating, due mainly to America's persistent and growing trade deficit. US ambitions to run the world, in other words, are heavily mortgaged. Like any debtor who borrows more year after year with no plausible way to reverse the trend, a nation sinking deeper into debt enters into an adverse power relationship with its creditors -- greater and greater dependency.
~ William Greider, in The Nation magazine (23 September 2002). The End of Empire

No greater plague can befall a man than power without grace.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

Hit hard, hit fast, hit often.
~ Admiral William Frederick ("Bull") Halsey, Jr., in The Language of World War II (1944).

In general, the feminine way is to feel oneself to be intimately a part of the surrounding world, and to regard power not as "power over" someone, but as a quality innate in each individual, available for creative purposes, potentially in limitless supply. It is quite alien to the feminine side to try to control and dominate the universe, or to be obsessed with demonstrating "power over nature."
~ Willis Harman, Creative Work (1990). On the Feminine Way

I've never read Marx's Capital, but I have the mark of capital all over me.
~ William D. "Big Bill" Haywood.

Power is the grim idol that the world adore.
~ William Hazlitt, from Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (1819). The Times Newspaper: On the Connexion Between Toad-eaters and Tyrants (written 12 January 1817)

The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.
~ William Hazlitt, from Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (1819). The Times Newspaper: On the Connexion Between Toad-eaters and Tyrants (written 12 January 1817)

The ballot is only useful as a screen from arbitrary power.
~ William Hazlitt, in Winterslow, Essays and Characters Written There (1850). Project for a New Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation (written in 1828)

The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.
~ William Hazlitt, from Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (1819). On the Clerical Character

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
~ William Hazlitt

To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, Volume II (1821-1822). Essay IX. The Indian Jugglers

Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of Right (1821). First Part: Abstract Right, iii. Wrong

Man may make life what he pleases, and give it as much worth, both for himself and others, as he has energy for.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, in Thoughts and Opinions of a Statesman (1849). Letter XV

It is as important to cultivate your silence power as it is your word power.
~ William James

Men habitually use only a small part of the powers which they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstance.
~ William James

No human being ever learns to live until he has awakened to the dormant powers within him.
~ William James

The normal opener of deeper and deeper levels of energy is the will.
~ William James, Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association. Columbia University (28 December 1906). The Energies of Men

The human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum.
~ William James, Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association. Columbia University (28 December 1906). The Energies of Men

Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907).

[M]y opinion is that power should be distrusted, in whatever hands it is based.
~ Sir William Jones, in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Correspondence, of Sir William Jones (1804). Letter to Lord Althorpe (5 October 1782).

Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or for evil, -- the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.
~ William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness (1900). III: The Power of Personal Influence

Paintings may not have nearly the power to convert people that the printed or spoken word has, but each man has his part to play in the human and divine drama -- some persons just a few lines, others whole pages. To refuse to play one's role at all is not the answer. It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
~ William Kurelek

It is impossible that any Body can feel the being out of Parliament more keenly for me than I feel it for myself. It is actually cutting my throat. It is depriving me of the great object of my life.
~ William Lamb (2nd Viscount, Lord Melbourne), Letter to the Viscountess Melbourne (30 September 1812)

Dreams and dedication are a powerful combination.
~ William Frank Longgood, Voices from the Earth: A Year in the Life of a Garden (May 1991).

It is the meek and the humble masses of people who truly have the power to alter the course of history.
~ William E. Marks, The Holy Order of Water (2001).

Tell me how much has been your patient toil in obscurity, and I will tell you how far you will triumph in an emergency.
~ William Mathews, Getting on in the World; Or, Hints on Success in Life (1872). XVI. Reserved Power

So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

You are far more powerful than you ever dreamed.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995). Introduction

The most effective water power in the world is women's tears.
~ Wilson Mizner

All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Not necessity, not desire--no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything--health, food, a place to live, entertainment--they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

People demand freedom only when they have no power.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The citerion of truth resides in the enhancement of the feeling of power.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The world itself is the will to power -- and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power -- and nothing else!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Will to Power (1901).

Does he [the president] possess the power of making war? That power is exclusively vested in Congress. ... It is the exclusive province of Congress to change a state of peace into a state of war.
~ William Paterson, United States v. Smith (1806).

Force may make hypocrites, but can make no converts.
~ William Penn, Letter to Lord Arlington (1668).

The Tower is to me the worst argument in the world.
~ William Penn, (paraphrased, c. 1668)

What is pretty clear is that we will be faced with the specter of another nuclear power which can use their weapons to threaten South Korea, to threaten Japan ... with every prospect that they will sell some of that plutonium and nuclear bombs to the highest bidder so they might end up in American cities as well.
~ William J. Perry, Reuters (3 June 2003). Time Running Out for North Korea Solution -- Perry

Oppression is but another name for irresponsible power, if history is to be trusted.
~ William Pinkney, in Some Account Of The Life, Writings, And Speeches Of William Pinkney (1826). Part II. Number VII: Speech on the Missouri Question (in the U.S. Senate; 15 February 1820)

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.
~ William Pitt (1st Earl of Chatham), Speech delivered in the House of Lords, Hansard (on the case of John Wilkes; 9 January 1770).

The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be thwarted.
~ William Rivers Pitt, in t r u t h o u t | Perspective (21 February 2003). Of Gods and Mortals and Empire

Where the sovereign power is found in the public mind and the public heart, eloquence is the obvious approach to it.
~ William Campbell Preston, from the Eulogy of Hugh S. Legaré (1843).

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
~ William Proxmire

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
~ Will Rogers

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subject's treachery?
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III. Act II, scene v

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

O' it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

The weakest goes to the wall.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act I, scene i

Thou hast not half the power to do me harm
As I have to be hurt.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act V, scene ii

What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

[W]hen two authorities are set up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.
~ William Shakespeare, Coriolanus. Act III, scene i

I felt ... the sacredness of the power placed in my hands, to be used on behalf of the poor, the outcast and the oppressed.
~ W.T. (William Thomas) Stead, Letter to self (4 July 1875).

It is in the power of every individual to do that which the community as a whole is powerless to effect.
~ W.T. (William Thomas) Stead, The Northern Echo (27 October 1871). Bishop Frazer on the Social Evil

It matters not, whether that force ... be the gift of law or whether it be assumed by the tradesmen in spite of the law; it is equally mere force.
~ William Thompson, Labour Rewarded: The Claims of Labour and Capital Conciliated; Or, How to Secure to Labour the Whole Products of its Exertions (1827).

The way to have power is to take it.
~ William Marcy "Boss" Tweed

They say that man is mighty, he governs land and sea;
He wields a mighty sceptre o'er lesser powers that be.
~ William Ross Wallace, The Hand That Rules the World. Stanza 1

Whenever there is an inevitable conflict between a lower and a higher social group, any person who is wholly progressive must take his stand with the lower group. For the upper group will always use its power chiefly (though not exclusively) for its own purposes.
~ William English Walling, Progressivism -- and After (1914). Preface

Every person has the power to make others happy.
Some do it simply by entering a room --
others by leaving the room.
Some individuals leave trails of gloom;
others, trails of joy.
Some leave trails of hate and bitterness;
others, trails of love and harmony.
Some leave trails of cynicism and pessimism;
others trails of faith and optimism.
Some leave trails of criticism and resignation;
others trails of gratitude and hope.
What kind of trails do you leave?
~ William Arthur Ward, Happy Trails

The love of power is one of the greatest human infirmities, and with it comes the usurping influence of despotism, the mother of slavery.
~ William Whipper, Speech delivered at the First African Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia PA (16 August 1837). Non-Resistance to Offensive Aggression

That which is clearly accountable in a natural way, is not, without reason to be ascribed to a miraculous power.
~ William Whiston, A New Theory of the Earth (1696). Introduction

Each bliss unshared is unenjoyed,
Each power is weak unless employed
Some social good to gain.
~ William Whitehead, from Poems on Several Occasions (1754). The Enthusiast. An Ode

All thine immortal powers bring into play;
Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Prayer

The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew the way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Custer and Other Poems (1896). Will

Who is the strong? Not he who puts to test
His sinews with the strong and proves the best;
But he who dwells where weaklings congregate,
And never lets his splendid strength abate.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Strength

The knowledge that the Fatherland is acting in bitter self-defence has exercised a wonderfully reconciling power, and in spite of all sacrifices of blood on the battlefield and severe privations at home, the resolve has remained unshakable to stake the utmost for a victorious issue. National and social spirit have understood each other and become united and given us enduring strength.
~ Wilhelm II, Letter to the Chancellor of Prussia (4 April 1917).

We feel powerless because we believe we do not have the skills we need to master our lives.
~ Angel Kyodo Williams, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace (2000).

Eyes then are compacted power; they are an index of vision; they see and refer us to greater seeing.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, in Image of the City and Other Essays (1958).

They say power corrupts, and perhaps it does. What I know, in myself, is a quite different thing. That power corrupts the people it is exercised over.
~ Raymond Henry Williams, Second Generation: A Novel (1964).

Full steam. ... Knowledge -- Zzzzzp! Money -- Zzzzzp! -- Power!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Seven

And now we're coming to understand, I think, spiritually in this nation that there is as much power in the soul as there is in group force. There is as much power in listening and understanding and humility as there is, for instance, in military action.
~ Marianne Williamson, CNN TV "Larry King Weekend" (14 October 2001).

In each of us, there lies a divine connection to a power more powerful than hate or violence. Today is the day to attune to that power and use it on behalf of peace on earth.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Prayer for the World (11 September 2001).

In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.
~ Marianne Williamson

Man's mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast (1987).

[W]e possess such immense resources of power that pessimism is a laughable absurdity.
~ Colin Henry Wilson, Poetry and Mysticism (1969).

There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose. Even when individuals subordinate themselves and risk death in common cause, their genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generation than are those of competing groups who lack equivalent resolve.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

Whichever party is in office, the Treasury is in power.
~ Harold Wilson, quoted in The Changing Anatomy of Britain (1982).

The shock of discovering that most of the power in the world is held by ignorant and greedy people can really bum you out at first; but after you've lived with it a few decades, it becomes, like cancer and other plagues, just another problem that we will solve eventually if we keep working at it.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, in Kindred Spirit Magazine, Issue 40 (Interview; Autumn 1997). Radical Intelligence

[T]hat some mighty power controls the whole,
A secret intuition tells the soul.
~ William Winter, The Emotion of Sympathy (1856).

A power is passing from the earth.
~ William Wordsworth, Lines on the Expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox. Stanza 5

Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
~ William Wordsworth, from Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803). XI. Rob Roy's Grave

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour.
~ William Wordsworth, The River Duddon, A Series of Sonnets; Vaudracour and Julia: and Other Poems (1820). Afterthought

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes, Volume I (1807). The world is too much with us

[T]here is an unconquerable tendency in all power, save that of knowledge acting by and through knowledge, to injure the mind of him who exercises that power.
~ William Wordsworth, The Convention of Cintra (1809)

To life, to life give back thine Ear.
~ William Wordsworth, Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems (1835). On the Power of Sound

Visionary power
Attends upon the motions of the winds
Embodied in the mystery of words.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805). Book V: Books

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary.
~ William Butler Yeats, Letter to author Laurence Housman (10 October 1893).

They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). The Leaders of the Crowd