William Blake Quotes
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Art degraded, Imagination denied.
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It is the greatest of crimes to depress true art and science.
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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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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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When Sir Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded; The King dropped a tear in the Queen's ear, And all his pictures faded.
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The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
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But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
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Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
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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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If you, who are organised by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread, sorrow and desperation pursue you through life, and after death shame and confusion of face to eternity.
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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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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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A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation.
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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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Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, & they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals & is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
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The spirits of the air live on the smells Of fruit; and joy, with pinions light, roves round The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.
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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.
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He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.
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I am going to that country which I have all my life wished to see.
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When a Man has Married a Wife He finds out whether Her Knees & elbows are onlyglued together.
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My Brother starv'd between two Walls, His Children's Cry my Soul appalls.
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Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing, And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring; And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church, Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
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The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible.
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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.