William Blake Quotes

For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.

He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger and better light than his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.

Wisdom is sold in a desolate marketplace where none can come to buy.

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.

I'm sure this Jesus will not do Either for Englishman or Jew.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

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

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.

I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.

If you cannot imagine with the mind's eye much more than you can see with the mortal eye, you have a very poor imagination indeed.

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.

When nations grow old the Arts grow cold And commerce settles on every tree

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

Mutual forgiveness of each vice. Such are the Gates of Paradise.

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

When the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Naught can deform the human race Like to the armor's iron brace.

Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.

The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.

England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death And close her from thy ancient walls?

The Goddess Fortune is the devil's servant, ready to kiss any one's ass.

More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul.

Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as the nether sky appeared beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said: if you please we will commit ourselves to this void and see whether providence is here also.

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!

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!

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

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.

One thought fills immensity.

As we are, so we see.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau! Mock on, mock on: 'Tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel's paths they shine. The atoms of Democritus And Newton's particles of light Are sands upon the Red Sea shore, Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

We are here to learn to endure the beams of love

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

Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, & they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals & is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

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.

The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks.

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

Those who enter the gates of heaven are not beings who have no passions or who have curbed the passions, but those who have cultivated an understanding of them.

All the destruction in Christian Europe has arisen from deism, which is natural religion.

Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

One law for the lion and ox is oppression.

Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody poor. Mercy no more could be, If all were happy as we.

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.