Quotes from William Blake

They accumulate A world in which Man is by his nature the enemy of Man

All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics.

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels looked like torment and insanity, I collected some proverbs

As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.

The sun does arise, And make happy the skies. The merry bells ring To welcome the spring. The skylark and thrush, The birds of the bush, Sing louder around, To the bells' cheerful sound, While our sports shall be seen On the echoing green.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.

Great things are done when men and mountains meet; this is not done by jostling in the street.

One thought fills immensity.

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And, when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Vision is the end of religion.

I know that this world is a world of Imagination and Vision.

Whate'er is born of mortal birth    Must be consumed with the earth

Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy.

Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceiv'd.

Los Sexos nacidos del Orgullo y la Vergüenza florecieron en la mañana y en la noche murieron; mas la Piedad cambió la Muerte en Sueño; los Sexos se irguieron para obrar y llorar.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

The fox condemns the trap, not himself.

Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hells despair. So sang a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet; But a Pebble of the brook, Warbled out these metres meet. Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to Its delight: Joys in anothers loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heavens despite. - The Clod and the Pebble

If he who is organized by the divine for spiritual communion, refuse and bury his talent in the earth, even though he should want natural bread, shame and confusion of face will pursue him throughout life to eternity. -- William Blake, The letters of William Blake (1906)

INFANT SORROW    My mother groaned, my father wept:    Into the dangerous world I leapt,    Helpless, naked, piping loud,    Like a fiend hid in a cloud.    Struggling in my father's hands,    Striving against my swaddling-bands,    Bound and weary, I thought best    To sulk upon my mother's breast.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly, For the last judgment draweth nigh.