Best William Blake Quotes

For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.

I must create a system or be enslaved by another man s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt; helpless, naked, piping loud, like a fiend hid in a cloud.

He who desires but does not act, breeds pestilence.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru chinks of his cavern.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

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.

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

Christianity is art and not money. Money is its curse.

For Mercy has a human heartPity, a human face:And Love, the human form divine,And Peace, the human dress. Then every man of every clime,That prays in his distress,Prays to the human form divineLove Mercy Pity Peace.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

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.

When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea? O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

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.

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.

What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death.

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.

To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but immediately to the understanding or reason?

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise.

What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!

To create a little flower is the labor of ages.

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so holy.

The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.

If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out.

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.

The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar's laurel crown.

Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache; do be my enemy for friendship's sake.

Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth.