Pensive Quotes

• For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude

  William Wordsworth

  Lying, Eye, Solitude

  "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" l. 19 (1815 ed.)

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• Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

  William Wordsworth

  Beauty, Grace, Melancholy

  William Wordsworth (1847). “The Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.163

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• I can be jubilant one moment and pensive the next, and a cloud could go by and make that happen.

  Bob Dylan

  Clouds, Next, Moments

  Bob Dylan (2005). “Bob Dylan: Inspirations”, p.136, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

  Alexander Pope

  Sleep, Giving, Painful

  'The Dunciad' (1742) bk. 1, l. 93

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• Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train.

  John Milton

  Majestic, Sober, Demure

  John Milton (1874). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: Edited with Introductions, Notes and an Essay on Milton's English by David Masson”, p.191

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• Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Flower, Animal, Men

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star Papers: Or, Experiences of Art and Nature”, p.100, New York : Boston : J.C. Derby ; Phillips, Sampson & Company

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• Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.

  John Keats

  Eye, Bored

  John Keats, Jack Stillinger (1982). “Complete Poems”, p.359, Harvard University Press

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• Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.

  Nelson DeMille

  Clueless, Cover Ups

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• What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Interesting, Secret, Important

  "Michael Ondaatje: The Cat's Table" by Christian Williams, www.avclub.com. October 19, 2011.

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• Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.

  William C. Bryant

  Ocean, Waste, Melancholy

  William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

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• Those sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.

  Honore de Balzac

  Heart, Angel, Looks

  Honore De Balzac (1958). “Cousin Bette”

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• Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

  William Wordsworth

  Flower, Dancing, Fluttering

  'I wandered lonely as a cloud' (1807).

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• 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.

  William Wordsworth

  Lonely, Nature, Spring

  "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" l. 1 (1815 ed.) See DorothyWordsworth 1

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• The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mate less play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away.

  Emily Bronte

  Children, Book, Winter

  Emily Bronte (2007). “Wuthering Heights”, Broadview Press

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• Be not forward, but friendly and courteous; the first to salute, hear and answer; and be not pensive when it is time to converse.

  George Washington

  Friendship, Friendly, Answers

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1834). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.414

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• In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.

  Carson McCullers

  Wise, Faces, Towns

  Carson McCullers (2010). “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The unicorn was white, with hoofs of silver and graceful horn of pearl... The glorious thing about him was his eye. There was a faint bluish furrow down each side of his nose, and this led to the eye sockets, and surrounded them in a pensive shade. The eyes, circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotions except love.

  T. H. White

  Beautiful, Lonely, Eye

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• The misapprehension about me is that I am some loud, rampant maniac. I am actually very pensive and quiet.

  Brian Blessed

  Quiet, Loud, Maniacs

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• I'm a Gemini and I have a lot of different moods. Sometimes I'm very serious and introspective and pensive, but other times I'm completely goofy and girlie. So, I like my songs to cover all my moods.

  Jewel

  Song, Serious, Different

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• Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.

  Roland Barthes

  Photography, Thinking, Subversive

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• When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

  Khushwant Singh

  Stars, Night, Mirrors

  Khushwant Singh (1990). “Delhi”, p.248, Penguin Books India

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• Just had lunch with the president who seems pensive, slightly deflated, realistic, aggravated and resolute. Didn't eat his pie.

  Katie Couric

  Lunch, Pie, President

  twitter.com. January 27, 2010.

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• Once more their weird laughter of the loons comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical, melancholy sound. For a dangerous ledge off the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the gentle trolling of a warning bell as it swings on the rocking buoy; it might be tolling for the passing of summer and sweet weather with that persistent, pensive chime.

  Celia Thaxter

  Summer, Sweet, Laughter

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• That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.

  William C. Bryant

  Ocean, Men, Green

  William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

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

  William Wordsworth

  Heart, Garden, Pleasure

  "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" l. 19 (1815 ed.)

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