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William Blake Quotes

Painter
Born On
1757-11-28
Died On
1827-08-12
Birth Place
Soho
Death Place
Soho
Birth Sign
sagittarius
Father
James Blake
Mother
Catherine Wright Armitage Blake
Spouse
Catherine Blake
Nationality
British
Education
Royal Academy of Arts
Writers, Poets, Artists

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.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

Exuberance is beauty.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

To generalize is to be an idiot.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

William Blake

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

William Blake

What is now proved was once only imagined.

William Blake

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

William Blake

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

William Blake

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

William Blake

The eye altering, alters all.

William Blake

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!

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

Opposition is true friendship.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

One thought fills immensity.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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.

William Blake

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

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

William Blake

Every harlot was a virgin once.

William Blake

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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.

William Blake

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!

William Blake

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.

William Blake

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

William Blake