William Blake citations

Page 3

“My mother groaned, my father wept,
into the dangerous world I leapt.”

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

“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom… You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.”

“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.”

“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation.”

“This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love”

“Better to shun the bait than struggle in the snare.”

“Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.”

“Little Fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.”

“Exuberance is Beauty.”

“For every thing that lives is Holy.”

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

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

“Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears—
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveler came by
Silently, invisibly—
Oh, was no deny.”

“Everything to be imagined is an image of truth.”

“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”

“Expect poison from the standing water.”

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

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

“To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.”

“He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.”

“The lamb misused breeds public strife
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.”

“Prisons are built with stones of law; brothels with bricks of religion.”

“I will not reason and compare my business is to create.”

“Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.”

“Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.”