William Blake Quotes

320 Sourced Quotes

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
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

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
He who makes his law a curse, by his own law shall surely die.

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

William Blake
And throughout all eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.

William Blake
Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.

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
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite.

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

William Blake
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.

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

William Blake
If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He'd have done anything to please us;
Gone sneaking into synagogues,
And not us'd the Elders and Priests like dogs;
But humble as a lamb or ass
Obey'd Himself to Caiaphas.

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
Terror in the house does roar,
But Pity stands before the door.

William Blake
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

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

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

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