William Blake

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

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

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.

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.

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

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!

To generalize is to be an idiot.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

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

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

The eye altering, alters all.

Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

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

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

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

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

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.

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.

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.

Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.

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.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

Every harlot was a virgin once.

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.

It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.

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

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

One thought fills immensity.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

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

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

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.

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

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

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

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

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.