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William Blake

Read through the most famous quotes from William Blake




How can a bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing?


— William Blake


#freedom

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.


— William Blake


#explicit #grand #idiot #made #men

Expect poison from the standing water.


— William Blake


#middle-america #society #marriage

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


— William Blake


#innocence #pity #william-blake #experience

Dip him in the river who loves water.


— William Blake


#water #love

When the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?


— William Blake


#god #religion #tyger #experience

He who replies to words of doubt doth put the light of knowledge out.


— William Blake


#knowledge #science #science

I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason Compare: my business is to Create.


— William Blake


#business

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars my joys and desires. (from 'The Garden of Love')


— William Blake


#joy #love #religion #experience

When nations grow old the Arts grow cold And commerce settles on every tree


— William Blake


#business #modernity #art






About William Blake

William Blake Quotes




Did you know about William Blake?

Largely unrecognised during his lifetime Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. A more recent (and very short) study William Blake: Visionary Anarchist by Peter Marshall (1988) classified Blake and his contemporary William Godwin as forerunners of modern anarchism. In Visions Blake writes:

In the 19th century poet and free love advocate Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote a book on Blake drawing attention to the above motifs in which Blake praises "sacred natural love" that is not bound by another's possessive jealousy the latter characterised by Blake as a "creeping skeleton".

His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic" for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England – indeed to all forms of organised religion – Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify.

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