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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 -
What is now proved was once only imagined.
William Blake
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Every harlot was a virgin once.
William Blake -
Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
William Blake -
Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.
William Blake -
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
William Blake -
We are led to believe a lie When we see not through the eye.
William Blake -
Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.
William Blake
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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.
William Blake -
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
William Blake -
I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine, But O, he lives in the moony light! I thought to find Love in the heat of day, But sweet Love is the comforter of night.
William Blake -
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.
William Blake -
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
William Blake -
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.
William Blake
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To Mercy Pity Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is God our father dear. And Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is Man his child and care. Then every man of every clime That prays in his distress Prays to the human form divine: Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.
William Blake -
I am going to that country which I have all my life wished to see.
William Blake -
THE POISON TREE 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. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with my smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.
William Blake -
The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
William Blake -
The fields from Islington to Marybone, To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood, Were builded over with pillars of gold; And there Jerusalem's pillars stood.
William Blake -
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.
William Blake
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The cistern contains: The fountain overflows.
William Blake -
Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.
William Blake -
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.
William Blake -
I am under the direction of messengers from Heaven daily and nightly.
William Blake