William Blake Quotes

320 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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
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. 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 by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers..

William Blake
I cannot consider death as anything but a removing from one room to another.

William Blake
What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.

William Blake
Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

William Blake
Then old Nobodaddy aloft
Farted and belched and coughed,
And said, "I love hanging and drawing and quartering
Every bit as well as war and slaughtering."

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
When nations grow old, the Arts grow cold,
And Commerce settles on every tree.

William Blake
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

William Blake
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.

William Blake
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.

William Blake
The ancient poets animated all objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity; Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began priesthood; Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.

William Blake
But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.

William Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

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

William Blake
The look of love alarms
Because 'tis filled with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall win the lover's hire.

William Blake
The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible

William Blake
It is the greatest of crimes to depress true art and science.

William Blake
The countless gold of a merry heart, The rubies and pearls of a loving eye, The indolent never can bring to the mart, Nor the secret hoard up in his treasury.

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
He who replies to words of doubt doth put the light of knowledge out.

William Blake
Never pain to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

William Blake
Great things are done when men and mountains meet;
This is not done by jostling in the street.

William Blake
There can be no Good Will. Will is always Evil; it is persecution to others or selfishness.

William Blake
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 & then they are scattered abroad to the four winds

William Blake
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

William Blake