William Blake Quotes

320 Sourced Quotes

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
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