William Blake: Trending quotes

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William Blake: 498 quotes66 likes

“Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth.”

Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)
Context: Fun I love, but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth.

“What is now proved was once only imagined.”

William Blake

“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Voice of the Devil
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

“Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War.”

William Blake Milton

Ibid
Milton (c. 1809)

“Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.”

William Blake

A Divine Image, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

“How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?”

William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

“When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.”

William Blake The Chimney Sweeper

The Chimney Sweeper, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

“Opposition is true Friendship.”

William Blake

A Memorable Fancy
1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)
Source: The Portable Blake

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.”

William Blake

“For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.”

William Blake The Divine Image

The Divine Image, st. 3
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

A Memorable Fancy
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

“Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.”

William Blake

The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)
Context: The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.

“My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black as if bereaved of light.”

William Blake The Little Black Boy

The Little Black Boy, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

“There is a smile of love,
And there is a smile of deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which these two smiles meet.”

William Blake

The Smile, st. 1
1800s, Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805)

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
in the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

William Blake

St. 1
1790s, The Tyger (1794)