Quotations by Author

William Blake

Innocence dwells with Wisdom but never with ignorance.

I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

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.

'Come hither, my boy, tell me what thou seest there?' 'A fool tangled in a religious snare.'

The ancient poets animated all objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity; Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of, & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began priesthood; Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.