Blake, William quotes
1757-1827 British Poet PainterNothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.
Blake, William
Bureaucracy
He who desires but does not act, breeds pestilence.
Blake, William
Desire
If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they d immediately go out.
Blake, William
Doubt
Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.
Blake, William
Business
Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so holy.
Blake, William
Heaven
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.
Blake, William
Empire
When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.
Blake, William
Enemies
Christianity is art and not money. Money is its curse.
Blake, William
Christians and Christianity
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
Blake, William
Christians and Christianity
All futurity seems teeming with endless destruction never to be repelled; Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.
Blake, William
Future
Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.
Blake, William
Despair
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
Blake, William
Cunning
He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity s sunrise.
Blake, William
Joy
Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.
Blake, William
Challenges
I must create a system or be enslaved by another man s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.
Blake, William
Creativity
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
Blake, William
Fools and Foolishness
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
Blake, William
Eternity
To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.
Blake, William
Eternity
To create a little flower is the labor of ages.
Blake, William
Flowers
The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.
Blake, William
Generations
To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
Blake, William
Generalizations
Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
Blake, William
Energy
Energy is eternal delight.
Blake, William
Health
Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache; do be my enemy for friendship s sake.
Blake, William
Friends and Friendship
The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Blake, William
Excess
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.
Blake, William
Judaism and Jews
Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.
Blake, William
Humankind
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.
Blake, William
Liberty
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!
Blake, William
Institutions
Every harlot was a virgin once.
Blake, William
Innocence
Thinking as I do that the Creator of this world is a very cruel being, and being a worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying: the Son, O how unlike the Father! First God Almighty comes with a thump on the head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.
Blake, William
Jesus Christ
Expect poison from standing water.
Blake, William
Idleness
The Goddess Fortune is the devil s servant, ready to kiss any one s ass.
Blake, William
Luck
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.
Blake, William
Love
To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but immediately to the understanding or reason?
Blake, William
Imagination
What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death.
Blake, William
Illusion
For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
Blake, William
Life and Living
What is now proved was only once imagined.
Blake, William
Imagination
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru chinks of his cavern.
Blake, William
Perception
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
Blake, William
Opinions
Embraces are cominglings from the head even to the feet, and not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.
Blake, William
Sex
Can I see another s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another s grief, and not seek for kind relief?
Blake, William
Sympathy
Opposition is true friendship.
Blake, William
Opposition
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.
Blake, William
Misers and Misery
Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.
Blake, William
Nudity
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.
Blake, William
Nature
Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans.
Blake, William
Oppression
What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.
Blake, William
Obscurity
Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.
Blake, William
Opposites
I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. 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.
Blake, William
Perspective
I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.
Blake, William
Politicians and Politics
You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.
Blake, William
Piety
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
Blake, William
Possibilities
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Blake, William
Sorrow
The truth told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent
Blake, William
Truth
Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, and they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals and is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, and if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
Blake, William
Sorrow
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
Blake, William
Rules
Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.
Blake, William
Prudence
Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
Blake, William
Sorrow
When I tell any truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.
Blake, William
Truth
One thought fills immensity.
Blake, William
Thoughts and Thinking
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Blake, William
Stardom
For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.
Blake, William
Truth
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.
Blake, William
Time and Time Management
Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
Blake, William
Punishment
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.
Blake, William
Resentment
A truth that s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
Blake, William
Truth
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.
Blake, William
Truth
The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen s opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.
Blake, William
Respectability
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!
Blake, William
Babies
Exuberance is beauty.
Blake, William
Beauty
My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt; helpless, naked, piping loud, like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Blake, William
Birth
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.
Blake, William
Altruism
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!
Blake, William
Babies
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.
Blake, William
Fun
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!
Blake, William
Birds
Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.
Blake, William
Bible
The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar s laurel crown.
Blake, William
Fame
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Blake, William
Candor
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.
Blake, William
Angels
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 thief s.
Blake, William
Crime and Criminals
As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.
Blake, William
Vision
When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea? O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.
Blake, William
Vision
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.
Blake, William
Wisdom
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Blake, William
Wisdom
The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
Blake, William
Wisdom