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
Piping down the valleys wild, / Piping songs of pleasant glee, / On a cloud I saw a child.
And I made a rural pen, / And I stained the water clear, / And I wrote my happy songs / Every child may joy to hear.
What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe; And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruit and flowers.
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.
And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear.
When a man has married a wife, he finds out whether / Her knees and elbows are only glued together.
When I tell any truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.
The selfish smiling fool, and the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
I sometimes try to be miserable that I may do more work, but find it is a foolish experiment.
I see the Fourfold Man; the Humanity in deadly sleep, / And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow. / I see the Past, Present, and Future existing all at once / Before me.
The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom... for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.
Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.
Cruelty has a human heart, And jealousy a human face Terror, the human form divine, And secrecy, the human dress