William Blake Quotes
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Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
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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.
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Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy.
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Man was made for joy and woe, and when this we rightly know through the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul to bind.
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Active Evil is better than Passive Good.
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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.
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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.
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Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold, But the Ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm.
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May God us keep From Single vision and Newton's sleep.
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The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
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Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.
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Art degraded, Imagination denied.
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He who kisses joy as it flies by will live in eternity's sunrise.
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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.
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As a man is, so he sees.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.
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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.
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The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
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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.
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The fox condemns the trap, not himself.