William Blake Quotes

William Blake(English - Poet)

 

November 28, 1757 - August 12, 1827

 

ⓒ Wikipedia

 

 

 

Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

 

 

 

Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

 

 

 

Opposition is true friendship.

 

 

 

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

 

 

 

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

 

 

 

I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!

 

 

 

One thought fills immensity.

 

 

 

The eye altering, alters all.

 

 

 

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

 

 

 

To generalize is to be an idiot.

 

 

 

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

 

 

 

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

 

 

 

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

 

 

 

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

 

 

 

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

 

 

 

Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.

 

 

 

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

 

 

 

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

 

 

 

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

 

 

 

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.

 

 

 

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

 

 

 

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

 

 

 

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

 

 

 

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

 

 

 

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

 

 

 

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

 

 

 

He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.

 

 

 

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

 

 

 

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

 

 

 

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

 

 

 

What is now proved was once only imagined.

 

 

 

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

 

 

 

I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.

 

 

 

If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out.

 

 

 

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

 

 

 

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

 

 

 

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

 

 

 

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

 

 

 

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

 

 

 

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

 

 

 

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

 

 

 

Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.

 

 

 

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

 

 

 

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

 

 

 

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

 

 

 

Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?

 

 

 

Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.

 

 

 

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

 

 

 

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

 

 

 

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.

 

 

 

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

 

 

 

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

 

 

 

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

 

 

 

Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thiefs.

 

 

 

Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

 

 

 

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

 

 

 

Exuberance is beauty.

 

 

 

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

 

 

 

Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.

 

 

 

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

 

 

 

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

 

 

 

What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!

 

 

 

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.

 

 

 

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

 

 

 

Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

 

 

 

Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.

 

 

 

Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth.

 

 

 

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

 

 

 

It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.

 

 

 

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

 

 

 

To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.

 

 

 

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

 

 

 

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

 

 

 

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

 

 

 

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

 

 

 

Every harlot was a virgin once.

 

 

 

Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

 

 

 

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.

 

 

 

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

 

 

 

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.