Quote

Degrade first the Arts if you'd Mankind Degrade. Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade: Give high Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace, And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place.

William Blake

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Blake
Age: 69 †
Born: 1757
Born: November 28
Died: 1827
Died: August 12
Collector
Engraver
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Lithographer
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Printer
Theologian
London
England
W. Blake
Uil'iam Bleik
Blake
Giving
High
Arts
Idiots
Every
Art
Price
Disgrace
Place
Paint
Hire
Light
Ignorance
Shade
Give
Mankind
Labour
Best
Cold
Fill
Firsts
Leave
Idiot
Labours
First
Worst
Hot
Degrade

More quotes by William Blake

Image
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius lift up thy head!
William Blake
Image
Colouring does not depend on where the colours are put, but on where the lights and darks are put, and all depends on form and outline, on where that is put.
William Blake
Image
My Brother starv'd between two Walls,His Children's Cry my Soul appalls
William Blake
Image
The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.
William Blake
Image
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see, Is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind, Mine speaks in Parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates, Thy heaven-doors are my hell gates.
William Blake
Image
The generations of men run on in the tide of time, but leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever and ever.
William Blake
Image
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
William Blake
Image
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
William Blake
Image
Let the men do their duty & the women will be such wonders the female life lives from the light of the male: see a man's female dependants, you know the man.
William Blake
Image
I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another man's.
William Blake
Image
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.
William Blake
Image
He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger and better light than his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.
William Blake
Image
There is a smile of love, And there is a smile of deceit, And there is a smile of smiles In which these two smiles meet.
William Blake
Image
And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear.
William Blake
Image
I heard an Angel singing When the day was springing, Mercy, Pity, Peace Is the world's release.
William Blake
Image
Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser's passion, not the thief s.
William Blake
Image
Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, & they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
William Blake
Image
O why was I born with a different face? Why was I not born like the rest of my race?
William Blake
Image
The spirits of the air live on the smells Of fruit and joy, with pinions light, roves round The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.
William Blake
Image
What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death.
William Blake