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
Does the Eagle know what is in the pit Or wilt thou go ask the Mole? Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod, Or Love in a golden bowl?
How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you! The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forced, the notes are few!
He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.
We are here to learn to endure the beams of love
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.
As we are, so we see.
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.
Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
Listen to the fool's reproach! It is a kingly title!
My silks and fine array, My smiles and languished air, By love are driv'n away And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave: Such end true lovers have.
How sweet I roamed from field to field, And tasted all the summer's pride, Till I the prince of love beheld, Who in the sunny beams did glide!
Christianity is art and not money. Money is its curse.
One law for lion and ox is oppression.
I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.