William Blake Quotes

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

A tyrant is the worst disease, and the cause of all others.

'Come hither, my boy, tell me what thou seest there?' 'A fool tangled in a religious snare.'

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels looked like torment and insanity, I collected some proverbs

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.

Prepare your hearts for Death's cold hand! prepare
Your souls for flight, your bodies for the earth;
Prepare your arms for glorious victory;
Prepare your eyes to meet a holy God!
Prepare, prepare!

Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.

Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: "Pipe a song about a Lamb." So I piped with merry cheer; "Piper, pipe that song again." So I piped; he wept to hear.

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.

My silks and fine array, My smiles and languished air, By love are driv'n away And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave: Such end true lovers have.

Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

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.

We are here to learn to endure the beams of love.

The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.

It is the greatest of crimes to depress true art and science.

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?

The eye sees more than the heart knows.

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.

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.

Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow

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.

VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.

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!

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

The look of love alarms Because 'tis filled with fire; But the look of soft deceit Shall sin the lover's hire.

Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification.

But to go to school in a summer morn, O! It drives all joy away; Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day In sighing and dismay.

To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.

Love is the child that breathes our breath. Love is the child that scatters death.

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.

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.

The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.

Every man who is not an artist is a traitor to his own nature.

Execution is the chariot of genius.

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 some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

You throw the sand against the wind and the wind blows it back again.

A dead body revenges not injuries.

The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

Harmony of colouring is destructive of art? it is like the smile of a fool.

I cry, Love! Love! Love! happy happy Love! free as the mountain wind!

I said: 'Thou thing of patches, rings,
Pins, necklaces and suchlike things,
Disguiser of the female form,
Thou paltry, gilded poisonous worm!

Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy ...

General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocite, flatterer.

The Sick Rose O Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love

Dip him in the river who loves water.

Once a dream did weave a shade
O'er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?

'I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!

- "A Dream

Death is terrible, tho' borne on angels' wings!

Every mortal loss is an immortal gain.

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

In anguish dividing & dividing
For pity divides the soul
In pangs eternity on eternity
Life in cataracts pourd down his cliffs
The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves
Wand'ring wide on the bosom of night
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.

Where there is money there is no art.

If you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars.

Since all the riches of this world
May be gifts from the Devil and earthly kings,
I should suspect that I worshipp'd the Devil
If I thank'd my God for worldly things.

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

All pictures that's painted with sense and with thought / Are painted by madmen as sure as a groat; / For the greater the fool in the pencil more blest, / And when they are drunk they always paint best.

When the voices of children are heard on the greenAnd laughing is heard on the hill,My heart is at rest within my breastAnd everything else is still.

Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

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.

You've always had the power right there in your shoes, you just had to learn it for yourself.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

Everything that lives, lives not alone, nor for itself.

Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think at all, & not pronounce heartily! That to Labour in Knowledge. is to Build up Jerusalem: and to Despise Knowledge, is to Despise Jerusalem & her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another; calling it pride & selfishness & sin; mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift. which always appear to the ignorance-loving Hypocrite, as Sins. but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man. is not so in the sight of our kind God.

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.

Let every Christian, as much as in him lies, engage himself openly and publicly, before all the World, in some mental pursuit for the Building up of Jerusalem.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that won't believe.
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbeliever's fright.

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight is better, especially when it comes to saving life, or some pain!

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

If you trap the moment before it's ripe, The tears of repentence you'll certainly wipe; But if once you let the ripe moment go You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe; And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruit and flowers.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Embraces are comminglings from the head even to the feet, And not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.

Bring me an axe and spade,
Bring me a winding-sheet;
When I my grave have made
Let winds and tempests beat:
Then down I'll lie as cold as clay.
True love doth pass away!

To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit.

The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

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

A happy fly
If I live
Or if I die

Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night

Auguries of Innocence
By William Blake

O thou who passest through our valleys in Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat That flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer, Oft pitchest here thy golden tent, and oft Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Nurse's Song
WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.
No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.
Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.'
The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh'd
And all the hills echoed.

When the doors of perception are cleansed, men will see things as they truly are, infinite.

How sweet I roamed from field to field, And tasted all the summer's pride, Till I the prince of love beheld, Who in the sunny beams did glide!

How can a bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing?

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees,

Calling the lapsèd soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

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.

The pure soul shall mount on native wings, ... and cut a path into the heaven of glory.