William Blake - Man Quotes

28 Sourced Quotes

View all William Blake Quotes
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
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.

William Blake
The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self-evident thing is a Knave.

William Blake
Knowledge of ideal beauty is not to be acquired. It is born with us. Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; theyare truly himself.

William Blake
Mans desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceived.

William Blake
Poetry, Painting & Music, the three Powers in man of conversing with Paradise, which the flood did not sweep away.

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 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
Works of Art can only be produc'd in Perfection where the Man is either in Affluence or is Above the Care of it.

William Blake
The child's toys and the old man's reasons are the fruits of two seasons.

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

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

William Blake
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

William Blake
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds only reptiles of the mind.

William Blake
God wants not man to humble himself:
That is the trick of the Ancient Elf.
This is the race that Jesus ran:
Humble to God, haughty to man,
Cursing the Rulers before the people
Even to the Temple's highest steeple,
And when He humbled Himself to God
Then descended the cruel rod.
'If Thou Humblest Thyself, Thou humblest Me.
Thou also dwell'st in Eternity.

William Blake
I see the Four-fold Man.
The Humanity in deadly sleep,
And its fallen Emanation. The Spectre & its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present & Future, existing all at once
Before me; O Divine Spirit sustain me on thy wings!

William Blake
Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.

William Blake
Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce,
And dost not know the garment from the man.

William Blake
When a Man has Married a Wife
He finds out whether
Her Knees & elbows are only
glued together.

William Blake
True superstition is ignorant honesty & this is beloved of god and man.

William Blake
I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.
I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

William Blake
Man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

William Blake
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake
Thou art a man God is no more Thy own humanity Learn to adore

William Blake
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.

William Blake
I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care
Is whether he is a wise man or a fool. Go! put off holiness
And put on Intellect.

William Blake