Quotes by William Blake

• The eye altering, alters all.
• The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
• The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
• The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
• The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.
• The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
• The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.
• The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
• The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
• The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
• Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.
• The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
• The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.
• The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
• Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.
• Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
• The true method of knowledge is experiment.
• What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.
• 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.
• 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!
• You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
• Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.
• 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.
• When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.
• What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
• 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.
• Opposition is true friendship.
• The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
• Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?
• Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.
• 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.
• To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.
• To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.
• To generalize is to be an idiot.
• Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
• Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
• What is now proved was once only imagined.
• Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.
• Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
• 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.
• For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
• Exuberance is beauty.
• Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
• Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
• 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.
• One thought fills immensity.
• As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.
• Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.
• Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.
• Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
• Active Evil is better than Passive Good.
• A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
• A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
• Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
• If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out.
• Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.
• No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
• Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
• Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
• Lives in eternity's sun rise.
• 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 only.
• It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
• In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
• He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
• Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.
• If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
• If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
• If a thing loves, it is infinite.
• 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.
• I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.
• I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!
• I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.
• He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
• 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.