William Blake

I love hanging and drawing and quartering_x000D_ Every bit as well as war and slaughtering.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.

In your own bosom you bear your heaven and earth, _x000D_ And all you behold, though it appears without, _x000D_ It is within, in your imagination, _x000D_ Of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou build thy dark, Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

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.

Expect poison from the standing water.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

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.

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is God our father dear. And Mercy Pity Peace and Love Is Man his child and care. Then every man of every clime That prays in his distress Prays to the human form divine: Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

I will not cease from mental fight Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed.

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.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.