WILLIAM BLAKE QUOTES IV

English poet & painter (1757-1827)

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

WILLIAM BLAKE

Poems from Blake's Notebook


The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


One thought fills immensity.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


Bit from the dolorous groan on high a shadow of smoke appeared,
And human bones rattling together in the smoke and stamping
The nether abyss, and gnashing in fierce despair, and panting in sobs,
Thick, short, incessant, bursting, sobbing, deep despairing, stamping,
Struggling to utter the voice of man, to take features of man,
To take the limbs of man.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Vala


Terror in the house does roar,
But Pity stands before the door.

WILLIAM BLAKE

"Terror in the House"


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", Songs of Innocence


Are those who love like those who died, risen again from death,
Immortal in immortal torment never to be delivered?

WILLIAM BLAKE

Vala


The sword sung on the barren heath,
The sickle in the fruitful field;
The sword he sung a song of death,
But could not make the sickle yield.

WILLIAM BLAKE

"Love to Faults", Poems from Blake's Notebook


When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still.

WILLIAM BLAKE

"Nurse's Song", Songs of Innocence


Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly bright.

WILLIAM BLAKE

"The Lamb", Songs of Innocence


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

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

WILLIAM BLAKE

"Proverbs of Hell", The Marriage of Heaven and Hell


But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers.

WILLIAM BLAKE

letter to Rev. Dr. Trusler, August 23, 1799


Every Harlot was a Virgin once.

WILLIAM BLAKE

For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise


The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Proverbs of Hell


It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun,
And in the harvest to sing on the wagon loaded with corn.
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,
To listen to the hungry raven's cry in the winter season,
When the red blood is filled with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Vala


Eternity is before me like a dark lamp.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Vala


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

WILLIAM BLAKE

"Never Seek to Tell", Poems from Blake's Notebook