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About this quote

What does it mean?
Pride is likened to a rocket trying to reach the stars, suggesting it is flashy but ultimately futile.
In plain terms
Pride is like a firework trying to be a star.
What can you take from it?
Pride is often an empty display of ambition.

Where it applies

  • self-aggrandizement
  • political speech

Putting it to work

  • stay humble
  • value substance over flash

Questions to consider

  • Is pride ever justified?
  • What looks like a star but is not?

Another view

Ambition can lead to genuine achievement.

More from William Wordsworth

  1. And beauty, for confiding youth, Those shocks of passion can prepare That kill the bloom before its time; And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most respl…

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  2. Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour.

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  3. Surprised by joy-impatient as the Wind.

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