Quotes from William Blake

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

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

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.

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

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

Gratitude is heaven itself.

This life's dim windows of the soul Distorts the heavens from pole to pole And leads you to believe a lie When you see with, not through, the eye.

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

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.

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.

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

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

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

The ruins of time build mansions in eternity.

Time is the Mercy of Eternity

Such, such were the joys When we all, girls and boys, In our youth time were seen On the Echoing Green.

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

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.

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you! The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forced, the notes are few!

Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:While the Lily white shall in love delight,Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.