William Blake Quotes

320 Sourced Quotes

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

William Blake
The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.

William Blake
LOVE'S SECRET Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears. Ah! she did depart! Soon after she was gone from me, A traveller came by, Silently, invisibly: He took her with a sigh.

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

William Blake
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.

William Blake
And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.

William Blake
Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joys inclined,
Lawless, winged, and unconfined,
And breaks all chains from every mind.

William Blake
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black as if bereaved of light.

William Blake
Oh! why was I born with a different face? why was I not born like the rest of my race? when I look, each one starts! when I speak, I offend; then Im silent & passive & lose every friend. Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, my person degrade & my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; all my talents I bury, and dead is my fame. Im either too low or too highly prized; when elate I m envy'd, when meek Im despis'd

William Blake
How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoyed in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forced, the notes are few!

William Blake
The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

William Blake
I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem's wall.

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

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears—
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveler came by
Silently, invisibly—
Oh, was no deny.

William Blake
To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.

William Blake
Bring out number weight and measure in a year of dearth.

William Blake
The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.

William Blake
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done.

William Blake
Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore
Is given thee till the break of day.

William Blake
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.

William Blake
God appears and god is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day

William Blake
My mother groaned! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

William Blake
Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by Incapacity.

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
The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.

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

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