William Blake Quotes

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William Blake Quotes & Sayings


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It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God alone.
- William Blake


When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by, When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
- 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


The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.


Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.
- William Blake


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.
- William Blake


To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.
- William Blake


Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed.
- William Blake


He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
- William Blake


Commerce is so far from being beneficial to Arts or to Empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their History shows, for the above Reason of Individual Merit being its Great Hatred. Empires flourish till they become Commercial & then they are scattered abroad to the four winds
- William Blake


The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
- William Blake


…some say that Happiness is not Good for Mortals & they ought to be answerd 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.
- William Blake


I was angry with my friend, I told my wrath, my wrath die end. I was angry with my foe, I told it not, my wrath did grow.
- William Blake


When I tell any Truth it is not for the sake of Convincing those who do not know it but for the sake of defending those who Do
- William Blake


Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.
- William Blake


Every Harlot was a Virgin once
- William Blake


It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
- William Blake


To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
- William Blake


You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue & you cannot have Moral Virtue without the Slavery of that half of the Human Race who hate what you call Moral Virtue
- William Blake


Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache, do be my enemy - for friendship's sake.
- William Blake


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


Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.
- William Blake


Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.
- William Blake


The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
- William Blake


But to go to school in a summer morn, Oh, it drives all joy away! Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day-- In sighing and dismay.
- William Blake


Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
- William Blake


If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
- William Blake


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


God appears, and God is Light, To those poor souls who dwell in Night, But does a Human Form display To those who dwell in realms of Day.
- William Blake


The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
- William Blake


The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
- William Blake


Tools were made and born with hands, Every farmer understands.
- William Blake


What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.
- William Blake


Fun I love, but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth.
- William Blake


But Want of Money & the Distress of A Thief can never be alleged as the Cause of his Thieving, for many honest people endure greater hard ships with Fortitude. We must therefore seek the Cause else where than in want of Money for that is the Misers passion, not the Thiefs.
- William Blake


Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
- William Blake


I have mental joys and mental health, Mental friends and mental wealth, I've a wife that I love and that loves me, I've all but riches bodily.
- William Blake


A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent.
- William Blake


The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
- William Blake


God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!
- William Blake


You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue, I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.
- William Blake


One thought fills immensity.
- William Blake


Opposition is true friendship.
- William Blake


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