Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by William Blake (English Poet)

William Blake (1757–1827) was an English artist, engraver, mystical philosopher, visionary, and poet. His watercolors and engravings, like his writings, were appreciated fully only after his death. His poems denote the beginning of romanticism and a rejection of the Age of Enlightenment.

Blake was born in Soho, London, where he lived most of his life. His early childhood was dominated by spiritual visions that influenced his personal and working life. Instead of going to school, he was apprenticed to an engraver; there, he learned skills he was to use throughout his career as a poet.

In 1784, Blake set up a print shop, but the business struggled within a few years. For the rest of his life, Blake eked out a living as an engraver and illustrator. Blake always wrote out poems by hand on an engraving plate, rather than using type, engraved illustrations and hand-colored them—he was concerned with the presentation of his poetry as well as the words themselves.

Blake’s first book, Poetical Sketches, was published in 1783. He produced his most famous works, Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794,) by engraving both the words and the pictures on the same plate; this was his distinctive style. The Songs of Innocence are simple poems, written as if spoken by children. They are generally hopeful and optimistic. However, the Songs of Experience are also childlike in approach, but darker and more pessimistic. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience had sold fewer than 20 copies in 30 years.

At the time of his death, Blake was an unknown figure, best remembered for his engravings of other peoples’ work, or perhaps for his one famous poem, “The Tyger.” Among those familiar with his life’s work, the consensus was that he was insane. It wasn’t until 30 years after his death that a husband-and-wife team, Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, published a two-volume biography of Blake that firmly established him as a brilliant and vital artist.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by William Blake

Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so? He replied, “All poets believe it does. And in ages of imagination, this firm persuasion removes mountains; but many are not capable of firm persuasion of anything”.
—William Blake
Topics: Believe

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
—William Blake
Topics: Opinion, Change, Opinions, Thought, Reason

What is now proven was once only imagined.
—William Blake

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
—William Blake
Topics: Energy

The bird a nest
the spider a web
the human friendship.
—William Blake
Topics: Friendship

A man can’t soar too high, when he flies with his own wings.
—William Blake

Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are The plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.
—William Blake
Topics: Hypocrisy

I must create a system, or be enslav’d by another man’s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.
—William Blake
Topics: Sin, Business, Reason, Creativity, Create

The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.
—William Blake
Topics: Generations

Embraces are cominglings from the head even to the feet, and not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.
—William Blake
Topics: Sex, Love

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
—William Blake
Topics: Life and Living

My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt; helpless, naked, piping loud, like a fiend hid in a cloud.
—William Blake
Topics: Birth

If you have form’d a circle to go into,
Go into it yourself, and see how you would do.

They said this mystery never shall cease:
The priest promotes war, and the soldier peace.
—William Blake
Topics: War

Exuberance is beauty.
—William Blake
Topics: Beauty, Passion, Enthusiasm

You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.
—William Blake
Topics: Religion

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
—William Blake
Topics: Sadness, Sorrow

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
—William Blake
Topics: Christianity, Christians

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
—William Blake
Topics: Sadness, Sorrow

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.
—William Blake
Topics: Business

For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.
—William Blake
Topics: Truth

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
—William Blake

What is the price of experience?. Do men buy it for a song?. Or wisdom for a dance in the street?. No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
—William Blake
Topics: Wisdom

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
—William Blake
Topics: Punishment

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.
—William Blake
Topics: Humanity, Humankind

The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest
—William Blake
Topics: One liners

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
—William Blake
Topics: Forgiveness, One liners, Enemy, Friendship

The errors of a wise man make your rule, Rather than the perfections of a fool.
—William Blake
Topics: Mistakes

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
—William Blake
Topics: Forethought, Foolishness, Foresight, Vision, Fools

Shame is pride’s cloak.
—William Blake
Topics: Shame, One liners, Pride

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.
—William Blake
Topics: Crime, Criminals

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