Quotes By William Blake

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

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

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

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.

Every harlot was a virgin once.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

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

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

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.

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.

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.

Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

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.

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.

Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

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

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

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!

If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out.

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.