William Blake Quotes
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Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.
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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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Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
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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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Joy and woe are woven fine.
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What is now proved was once only imagined.
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Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy.
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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!
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To generalize is to be an idiot.
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The cistern contains: The fountain overflows.
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To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.
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Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.
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Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.
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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.
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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.
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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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It is the greatest of crimes to depress true art and science.
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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.
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What is it men in women do require: The lineaments of gratified desire. What is it women do in men require: The lineaments of gratified desire.
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My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.
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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.
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Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
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I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
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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.