Quotes by William Blake
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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.

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

As a man is, so he sees.

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.

I see through my eyes, not with them.

This life's dim windows of the soul Distorts the heavens from pole to pole And leads you to believe a lie When you see with, not through, the eye.

All wholesome food is caught without a net or trap.

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.

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.

The worship of God is, Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best; those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.

Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.

A DIVINE IMAGE Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secresy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace sealed, The human heart its hungry gorge.

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.

I rest not from my great task! | To open the Eternal Worlds, | to open the immortal Eyes of Man | Inwards into the Worlds of Thought; | Into eternity, ever expanding | In the Bosom of God, | The Human Imagination.

But if at church they would give some ale. And a pleasant fire our souls to regale. We'd sing and we'd pray all the live long day, Nor ever once from the church to stray.

Nothing is real beyond imaginative patterns men make of reality.

Children of the future age Reading this indignant page Know that in a former time Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar's laurel crown.

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly, For the Last Judgement draweth nigh.

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.

When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

Without minute neatness of execution, the sublime cannot exist! Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas.

The Angel that presided o'er my birth Said, 'Little creature, formed of joy and mirth, Go love without the help of any thing on earth'.

Rome and Greece swept Art into their maw and destroy'd it; a Warlike State never can produce Art. It will Rob and Plunder and accumulate into one place, and Translate and Copy and Buy and Sell and Criticize, but not Make.

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit Or wilt thou go ask the Mole? Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod, Or Love in a golden bowl?

Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.

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.

Joy and woe are woven fine.

Thinking as I do that the Creator of this world is a very cruel being, and being a worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying: ''the Son, O how unlike the Father!'' First God Almighty comes with a thump on the head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.

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.

Where cheating is, there's mischief there.

He who loves his enemies betrays his friends; this surely is not what Jesus meant.

My mother groaned, my father wept,
into the dangerous world I leapt.

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.

A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation.

The fox condemns the trap, not himself.

The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

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?
- The Tyger.

Shame is pride's cloak.

I heard an Angel singing; When the day was springing, Mercy, Pity, Peace; Is the world's release.

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

Pride is a personal commitment. It is an attitude which separates excellence from mediocrity.

Energy is an eternal delight.

To the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

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

He who replies to words of doubt
doth put the light of knowledge out.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done. Practice is Art. If you leave off you are lost.

I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.

Love is weak when there is more doubt than there is trust, but love is most strong when you learn to trust even with all the doubts. If a thing loves, it is infinite.

One Power alone makes a Poet: Imagination. The Divine Vision.

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

Nature has no outline. Imagination has.

Energy is eternal delight.

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

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

The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after death of the vegetative body.

You become what you behold.

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

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

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics.

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.

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:While the Lily white shall in love delight,Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea? O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.

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.

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

Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

Excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand.

Every object that is loved forms the center of a paradise.

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.

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

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

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

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.

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

The lamb misused breeds public strife
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd Around their shores, indignant burning with the fires of Orc.

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.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou build thy dark, Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

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.

Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.

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

Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire.

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.

Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

The eye altering, alters all.

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

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.