Quotes from William Blake

But to go to school in a summer morn, O! It drives all joy away; Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day In sighing and dismay.

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

A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage.

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.

It is right it should be so: Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go.

Thou art a man God is no more Thy own humanity Learn to adore

My work is visionary or imaginative. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care...

The cut worm forgives the plow.

A dead body revenges not injuries.

That which can be made Explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find

Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as the nether sky appeared beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said: if you please we will commit ourselves to this void and see whether providence is here also.

Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody poor. Mercy no more could be, If all were happy as we.

To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration

I have no name I am but two days old.- What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name,- Sweet joy befell thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee: Thou dost smile. I sing the while Sweet joy befell thee. - Infant Joy

The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks.

Pluck thou my flower, Oothoon the mild; Another flower shall spring, because the soul of sweet delight Can never pass away.

Enthusiastic admiration is the first principle of knowledge and the last

IV   The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels. V   If the many become the same as the few, when possess'd, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul, less than All cannot satisfy Man. VI   If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot. VII   The desire of Man being Infinite the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite.