William Blake
William Blake
William Blakewas an English poet, painter, and printmaker. 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. His prophetic works have been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 November 1757
Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.
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!
Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy.
The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the spirit.
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.
[L]et light Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring The honey’d dew that cometh on waking day. O radiant morning...
O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn; And the morn Rises from the slumbrous mass.
Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.
All futurity seems teeming with endless destruction never to be repelled; Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.
To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
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.
For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.
Imitation is criticism.