William Blake Quotes

320 Sourced Quotes

I have heard many people say, "Give me the ideas, it is no matter what words you put them into.... Ideas cannot be given but in their minutely appropriate words,

William Blake
Come live, and be merry, and join with me, To sing the sweet chorus of 'Ha ha he!

William Blake
Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing, And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring; And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church, Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

William Blake
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

William Blake
The grave is Heaven's golden gate,
And rich and poor around it wait;
O Shepherdess of England's fold,
Behold this gate of pearl and gold!

William Blake
If you have form'd a circle to go into,
Go into it yourself, and see how you would do.

They said this mystery never shall cease:
The priest promotes war, and the soldier peace.

William Blake
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.

William Blake
He who pretends to be either painter or engraver without being a master of drawing is an imposter.

William Blake
Colouring does not depend on where the colours are put, but on where the lights and darks are put, and all depends on form and outline, on where that is put.

William Blake
The ignorant Insults of Individuals will not hinder me from doing my duty to my Art

William Blake
I turn my eyes to the schools & universities of Europe And there behold the loom of Locke whose woof rages dire, Washed by the water-wheels of Newton. Black the cloth In heavy wreaths folds over every nation; cruel works Of many wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden, which Wheel within wheel in freedom revolve, in harmony & peace.

William Blake
The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the spirit.

William Blake
I am under the direction of messengers from Heaven daily and nightly.

William Blake
Energy is the only life, and is from the body; and reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy. Energy is eternal delight.

William Blake
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated [i.e. mortal] body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature.

William Blake
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh
And thy maker is not by;
Think not thou canst weep a tear
And thy maker is not near.

William Blake
O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn; And the morn Rises from the slumbrous mass.

William Blake
You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.

William Blake
Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast.

William Blake
Forgive what you do not approve & love me for this energetic exertion of my talent

William Blake
To teach doubt and Experiment Certainly was not what Christ meant.

William Blake
Tools were made and born were hands, Every farmer understands.

William Blake
The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.

William Blake
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laugh'd
And all the hills echoed

William Blake
If you, who are organised by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread, sorrow and desperation pursue you through life, and after death shame and confusion of face to eternity.

William Blake
To create a little flower is the labor of ages.

William Blake
Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; they are truly himself. The man who says that we have no innate ideas must be a fool and knave, having no conscience or innate science.

William Blake
The worship of God is, Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best; those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.

William Blake
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner As of a Globe rolling thro' Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro. The Microscope knows not of this nor the Telescope: they alter The ratio of the Spectator's Organs, but leave Objects untouch'd.

William Blake
God keep me... from supposing Up and Down to be the same thing as all experimentalists must suppose.

William Blake