The quotations of

William Blake

English poet and artist

1757–1827

36 quotes, most often on God, Patriotism and Art.

He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.
Proverbs of Hell, Line 5
- Motivation & Goals
Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
Proverbs of Hell, Line 66
- Genius
What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.
Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)
- Intelligence
To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.
Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, pp. xvii–xcviii (c. 1798–1809)
- Intelligence
- Knowledge
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.
Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 3, plate 55, line 60
- Charity
- Morality
The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils’ party without knowing it.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)
- Poetry
The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)
- Christianity
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
Auguries of Innocence (1803), Line 53In context
- Truth & Lies
I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s;
I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.
Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 1, plate 10, lines 20-21 The Words of Los
- Art
- Freedom
Poetry Fetter’d. Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destroy’d, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting, and Music are Destroy’d or Flourish!
Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Tyger (1794)In context
- Animals
- God
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
The Tyger (1794)In context
- God
- Good & Evil
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
The Lamb (1789)In context
- Animals
- God
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
London (1794)In context
- Freedom
- Thinking
O rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
The Sick Rose (1794)In context
- Life & Death
- Love

Most quoted

People A to Z

C. S. Lewis1898–1963151 quotes

Mark Twain1835–1910151 quotes

Benjamin Franklin1706–179098 quotes

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–196884 quotes

Albert Einstein1879–195595 quotes

Dave Barryborn 1947100 quotes