William Blake Quotes
-
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!
-
The ignorant Insults of Individuals will not hinder me from doing my duty to my Art.
-
Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
-
The ancient Poets animated all sensible 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.
-
Every tear from every eye Becomes a babe in eternity.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.
-
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.
-
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see, Is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind, Mine speaks in Parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates, Thy heaven-doors are my hell gates.
-
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves the feet of angels bright; unseen they pour blessing, and joy without ceasing, on each bud and blossom, and each sleeping bosom.
-
What is now proved was once only imagined.
-
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!
-
Without minute neatness of execution, the sublime cannot exist! Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas.
-
Listen to the fool's reproach! It is a kingly title!
-
I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 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. How the Chimney-sweeper's cry Every black'ning Church appalls; And the hapless Soldier's sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot's curse Blasts the new born Infant's tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
-
One Power alone makes a Poet: Imagination. The Divine Vision.
-
A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
-
I am under the direction of messengers from Heaven daily and nightly.
-
Poetry fettered fetters the human race.
-
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.
-
Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.
-
Mysteries are not to be solved. They eye goes blind when it only wants to see why.
-
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.