Quotes by Blake, William

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

Blake, William on opposites   

"Opposition is true friendship."

Blake, William on opposition
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"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."

Blake, William on oppression   

"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."

Blake, William on perception
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"I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. 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."

Blake, William on perspective   

"You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time."

Blake, William on piety   

"I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life."

Blake, William on politics   

"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!"

Blake, William on babies   

"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings."

Blake, William on possibilities
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"Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity."

Blake, William on prudence   

"Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion."

Blake, William on punishment   

"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."

Blake, William on resentment
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"The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen's opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved."

Blake, William on respectability   

"Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night."

Blake, William on rules   

"Embraces are cominglings from the head even to the feet, and not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place."

Blake, William on sex   

"Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth."

Blake, William on sorrow   

"Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, and they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals and is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, and if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight."

Blake, William on sorrow   

"Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps."

Blake, William on sorrow
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"He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star."

Blake, William on stardom   

"Exuberance is beauty."

Blake, William on beauty
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"When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!"

Blake, William on birds   

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

Blake, William on birth   

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

Blake, William on bureaucracy   

"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, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds."

Blake, William on business   

"Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you."

Blake, William on candor
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"Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street."

Blake, William on challenges
6 fans of this quote   

"Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?"

Blake, William on sympathy   

"One thought fills immensity."

Blake, William on thoughts and thinking   

"The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure."

Blake, William on time   

"The truth told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent"

Blake, William on truth   

"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."

Blake, William on truth   

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

Blake, William on truth   

"A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent."

Blake, William on truth   

"Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed."

Blake, William on truth   

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

Blake, William on vision   

"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."

Blake, William on vision   

"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."

Blake, William on wisdom   

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

Blake, William on wisdom   

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."

Blake, William on wisdom   

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

Blake, William on christians and christianity