Top 400 William Blake Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “General knowledges are those knowledges that idiots possess.”

— William Blake

252. “Praise is the practice of Art.”

— William Blake

253. “If you would help another man, you must do so in minute particulars.”

— William Blake

254. “The Vision of Christ that thou dost see, Is my vision’s greatest enemy. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind, Mine speaks in Parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates, Thy heaven-doors are my hell gates.”

— William Blake

255. “The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.”

— William Blake

256. “The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.”

— William Blake

257. “The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel crown.”

— William Blake

258. “The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons are the fruits of two seasons.”

— William Blake

259. “As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.”

— William Blake

260. “The lamb misused breeds public strife And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.”

— William Blake

261. “He who pretends to be either painter or engraver without being a master of drawing is an imposter.”

— William Blake

262. “The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.”

— William Blake

263. “I have mental joys and mental health, Mental friends and mental wealth, I’ve a wife that I love and that loves me; I’ve all but riches bodily.”

— William Blake

264. “Since the French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable one by another, certainly a happy state of agreement to which I forone do not agree.”

— William Blake

265. “Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

— William Blake

266. “Eternity is in love with the productions of time. The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.”

— William Blake

267. “Abstinence sows sand all over The ruddy limbs and flaming hair, But desire gratified Plants fruits of life and beauty there.”

— William Blake

268. “Mysteries are not to be solved. They eye goes blind when it only wants to see why.”

— William Blake

269. “It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted.”

— William Blake

270. “All wholesome food is caught without a net or trap.”

— William Blake

271. “O why was I born with a different face? Why was I not born like the rest of my race?”

— William Blake

272. “Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; they are truly himself. The man who says that we have no innate ideas must be a fool and knave, having no conscience or innate science.”

— William Blake

273. “Why cannot the ear be closed to its own destruction? Or the glistening eye to the poison of a smile?”

— William Blake

274. “The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel’d to heaven is no artist.”

— William Blake

275. “There can be no Good Will. Will is always Evil; it is persecution to others or selfishness.”

— William Blake

276. “Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy? Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?”

— William Blake

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

— William Blake

278. “The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen’s opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.”

— William Blake

279. “Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: “Pipe a song about a Lamb.” So I piped with merry cheer; “Piper, pipe that song again.” So I piped; he wept to hear.”

— William Blake

280. “Embraces are comminglings from the head even to the feet, And not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.”

— William Blake

281. “There is no mistake so great as the mistake of not going on.”

— William Blake

282. “VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.”

— William Blake

283. “Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.”

— William Blake

284. “Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.”

— William Blake

285. “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

286. “Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan’s gratification.”

— William Blake

287. “My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.”

— William Blake

288. “If others had not been foolish, we should be so.”

— William Blake

289. “Knowledge of ideal beauty is not to be acquired. It is born with us. Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; theyare truly himself.”

— William Blake

290. “Little fly, thy summer’s play My thoughtless hand has brushed away. Am not I a fly like thee? Or art not thou a man like me? For I dance and drink and sing, Till some blind hand shall brush my wing!”

— William Blake

291. “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.”

— William Blake

292. “He loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; Then stretches out my golden wing, And mocks my loss of liberty.”

— William Blake

293. “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.”

— William Blake

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294. “Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.”

— William Blake

295. “Joy and woe are woven fine.”

— William Blake

296. “Every mortal loss is an immortal gain.”

— William Blake

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

— William Blake

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

— William Blake

299. “I know that this world is a world of Imagination and Vision.”

— William Blake

300. “A musician, an artist, an architect: the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.”

— William Blake