Quotes by William Blake

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.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand.

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

The Devil answerd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? covet when he prayd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.

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.

He who replies to words of doubtdoth put the light of knowledge out.

Time is the mercy of Eternity without Times swiftness/ Which is the swiftest of all things: all were eternal torment.

May God us keepFrom Single vision and Newtons sleep.

We live as One Man for contracting our infinite senses we behold multitude or expanding: we behold as one.

How can a bird that is born for joySit in a cage and sing?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

When nations grow old the Arts grow coldAnd commerce settles on every tree

The following Discourse [on art, by Sir Joshua Reynolds] is particularly Interesting to Blockheads as it endeavours to prove that There is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich Angelo.

Thou art a manGod is no moreThy own humanityLearn to adore

My mother groaned, my father wept,into the dangerous world I leapt.

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

Expect poison from the standing water.

Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.