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
The fields from Islington to Marybone, / To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood, / Were builded over with pillars of gold; / And there Jerusalem's pillars stood.
In every cry of every man,In every infant's cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban,The mind-forged manacles I hear.
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.
Forgiveness of enemies can only come upon their repentance.
The sound is forced, the notes are few!
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.
A man's worst enemies are thoseOf his own house and family;And he who makes his law a curse,By his own law shall surely die.
see the world in a grain of sand ... And eternity in an hour.
I sometimes try to be miserable that I may do more work, but find it is a foolish experiment.
But to go to school in a summer morn, Oh, it drives all joy away! Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day in sighing and dismay
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.
Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius
Can I see another's woe, / And not be in sorrow too?
Love seeketh not itself to please, but for another gives its ease.