Quotes By William Blake

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

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

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

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

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.

Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

To generalize is to be an idiot.

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!

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

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.