''Christ's crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.''
''To me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of art? Why is Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but mediately to the understanding or reason?''
''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.''
''Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past and Future, sees;''
'''O Earth, O Earth, return! 'Arise from out the dewy grass; 'Night is worn, 'And the morn 'Rises from the slumberous mass.''
''What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what Is a theatre? are they two and not one? can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion, O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!''
''In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.''
''If thought is life And strength & breath, And the want Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die.''
''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?''
''I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;''
''That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them & the same will it be against Christians.''
''No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.''
''we Reap in joy the fruit Which we in bitter tears did sow.''
''And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father & never want joy. And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm, So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.''
''The cistern contains: The fountain overflows.''
''And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?''
''Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor; Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.''
''The Angel that presided o'er my birth Said, "Little creature, formed of Joy and Mirth, Go love without the help of any thing on earth.''
''My mother groan'd! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud: Like a fiend hid in a cloud.''
''Acts themselves alone are history.... Tell me the acts, O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish! All that is not action is not worth reading.''
''He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.''
''A dog starved at his master's gate Predicts the ruin of the state.''
''Tiger, Tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?''
''"Such, such were the joys When we all, girls and boys, In our youth time were seen On the Echoing Green."''
''With sweet May dews my wings were wet, And Phoebus fir'd my vocal rage; He caught me in his silken net, And shut me in his golden cage. He loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; Then stretches out my golden wing, And mocks my loss of liberty.''
''Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.''
''The Child's Toys and the Old Man's Reasons Are the Fruits of the Two seasons.''
''Truly, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce, And dost not know the Garment from the Man. Every Harlot was a Virgin once, Nor can'st thou ever change Kate into Nan.''
''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.''
''Come higher, Sleep, And my griefs enfold:''
''When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue, Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.''
''Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody poor; And mercy no more could be, If all were as happy as we;''
''To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.''
''The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine.''
''Ah, Sun-flower, weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun, Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller's journey is done: Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.''
''Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.''
''Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so holy.''
''Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be true.''
''My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white;''
''Sound the Flute! Now it's mute. Birds delight Day and Night;''
''Nature in darkness groans And men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: Restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain Feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words Of stern philosophy & knead the bread of knowledge with tears & groans.''
''I walked abroad in a snowy day; I asked the soft snow with me to play; She played and she melted in all her prime, And the winter called it a dreadful crime.''
''Does the sower Sow by night, Or the ploughman in darkness plough?''
''Every morn and every night Some to misery are born. Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.''
''The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin That pines for man shall awaken her womb to enormous joys In the secret shadows of her chamber: the youth shut up from The lustful joy shall forget to generate & create an amorous image In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow. Are not these the places of religion, the rewards of continence, The self-enjoyings of self-denial? why dost thou seek religion? Is it because acts are not lovely that thou seekest solitude Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire?''
''When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of Godlike lambs we joy, I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear To lean in joy upon our father's knee; And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him, and he will then love me.''
''Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress.''
''Struggling in my father's hands, Striving against my swaddling bands, Bound and weary, I thought best To sulk upon my mother's breast.''
''Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire! I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green & pleasant Land.''
''What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire.''
''And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too.''
''The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.''
''Since the French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable one by another, certainly a happy state of agreement to which I for one do not agree.''
''A man's worst enemies are those Of his own house & family; And he who makes his law a curse, By his own law shall surely die.''
''I have no name. I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!''
''When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!''
''Every thing that lives Lives not alone nor for itself.''
''Little Lamb, Here I am; Come and lick My white neck;''
''Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, My person degrade & my temper chastise; And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; And my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.''
''I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.''
''I traveld thro' a Land of Men A Land of Men & Women too, And heard & saw such dreadful things As cold Earth wanderers never knew.''
''The Beggar's Rags, fluttering in Air, Does to Rags the Heavens tear.''
''Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.''
''Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.''
''Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy? Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?"''
''Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.''
''Can I see a falling tear, And not feel my sorrow's share?''
''O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down Through the clear windows of the morning; turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!''
''"When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?" O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty."''
''I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.''
''Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head, And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice Of Him that walketh in the garden in the evening time!"''
''The generations of men run on in the tide of time, But leave their destined lineaments permanent for ever & ever.''
''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.''
''Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.''
''The enquiry in England is not whether a man has talents & genius, but whether he is passive & polite & a virtuous ass & obedient to noblemen's opinions in art & science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.''
''Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth Must be consumed with the Earth''
''I askèd a thief to steal me a peach He turned up his eyes I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down Holy & meek she cries— As soon as I went An angel came. He wink'd at the thief And smild at the dame— And without one word said Had a peach from the tree And still as a maid Enjoy'd the lady.''
''One thought fills immensity.''
''As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.''
''The Maiden caught me in the Wild, Where I was dancing merrily; She put me into her Cabinet And Lock'd me up with a golden Key.''
''You smile with pomp & rigor, you talk of benevolence & virtue; I act with benevolence & virtue & get murdered time after time.''
''Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?''
''I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.''
''The record of one's life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written. "I have no name: "I am but two days old." What shall I call thee? "I happy am, "Joy is my name." Sweet joy befall thee!''
''O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.''
''But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse''
''"O life of this our Spring! why fades the lotus of the water? Why fade these children of the Spring,born but to smile and fall?''
''O God, protect me from my friends, that they have not power over me. Thou hast giv'n me power to protect myself from thy bitterest enemies.''
''The Emmet's Inch and Eagle's Mile Make Lame Philosophy to smile.''
''The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of ainstruction.''
''How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls''
''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!''
''Can delight Chained in night The virgins of youth and morning bear?''
''The lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn Appears, listens silent, then springing from the waving Corn-field, loud He leads the Choir of Day—''
''Eternity is in love with the productions of time.''
''Christianity is art & not money. Money is its curse.''
''If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is,infinite.''
''We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro' the Eye''
''Embraces are cominglings from the head even to the feet, And not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.''
''She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous root Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:''
''Farewell green fields and happy groves, Where flocks have took delight.''
''"And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, Who make up a heaven of our misery."''
''The foundation of empire is art & science. Remove them or degrade them, & the empire is no more. Empire follows art & not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.''
''How sweet I roam'd 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!''
''The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.''
''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.''
''His little throat labours with inspiration, every feather On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence Divine.''
''Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?''
''In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.''
''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 & Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.''
''I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears— Ah, she doth depart.''
''"And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love,''
''He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb, He is meek, and he is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by his name.''
''Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau! Mock on, mock on—'Tis all in vain!''
''To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.''
''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.''
''The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.''
''And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be; And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires.''
''\'Break this heavy chain That does freeze my bones around. Selfish, vain, Eternal bane! That free love with bondage bound.'''
''I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.''
''Every harlot was a virgin once.''
''The strongest poison ever known Came from Caesar's laurel crown.''
''The atoms of Democritus And Newton's particles of light Are sands upon the Red Sea shore, Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.''
''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.''
''Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: Do be my enemy for friendship's sake.''
''God keep me from the divinity of Yes and No ... the Yea Nay Creeping Jesus, from supposing Up and Down to be the same thing as all experimentalists must suppose.''
''Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.''
''Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand?''
''Like a fiend in a cloud With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go;''
''For where'er the sun does shine, And where'er the rain does fall, Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.''
''All futurity Seems teeming with endless destruction never to be repelled; Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.''
''The Goddess Fortune is the devil's servant, ready to kiss any one's arse.''
''The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old England's winding sheet.''
''He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out.''
''Think not thou canst sigh a sigh And thy maker is not by; Think not thou canst weep a tear And thy maker is not near.''
''Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth.''
''The gods of the earth and sea Sought through nature to find this tree. But their search was all in vain: There grows one in the human brain.''
''The Divine Vision still was seen, Still was the human form divine Weeping in weak & mortal clay; O Jesus, still the form was thine!''
''Each outcry of the hunted hare A fibre from the brain does tear.''
''To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledges are those knowledges that idiots possess.''
''And she grows young as he grows old.''
''The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.''
''A Robin Redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage.''
''When the painted birds laugh in the shade, When our table with cherries and nuts is spread: Come live, and be merry, and join with me To sing the sweet chorus of 'Ha, ha, he!'''
''The weak in courage is strong in cunning.''
''Thou Fair-haired Angel of the Evening, Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!''
''Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles.''
''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.''
''Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?''
''On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me, "Pipe a song about a Lamb"; So I piped with merry chear. "Piper pipe that song again"— So I piped, he wept to hear. "Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy songs of happy chear"; So I sung the same again While he wept with joy to hear.''
''Prepare your hearts for Death's cold hand! prepare Your souls for flight, your bodies for the earth; Prepare your arms for glorious victory; Prepare your eyes to meet a holy God! Prepare, prepare!''
''The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.''
''You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, & you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.''
''For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain.''
''Never seek to tell thy love Love that never told can be;''
''What the hammer?What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil?What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?''
''A dog starv'd at his Master's Gate Predicts the ruin of the State.''
''Little Boy Full of joy; Little Girl, Sweet and small;''
''Your friendship oft has made my heart to ache: Do be my enemy for friendship's sake.''
''The Questioner, who sits so sly, Shall never know how to Reply.''
''"Why cannot the ear be closed to its own destruction? Or the glistening eye to the poison of a smile?''
''Bring me an axe and spade, Bring me a winding-sheet; When I my grave have made Let winds and tempests beat: Then down I'll lie as cold as clay. True love doth pass away!''
''What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.''
''When Sir Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded;''
''O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break.''
''For Mercy has a human heart, Pity, a human face; And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.''
''It appears to me that men are hired to run down men of genius under the mask of translators, but Dante gives too much of Caesar: he is not a republican.''
''Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.''
''And if the Babe is born a Boy He's given to a Woman Old, Who nails him down upon a rock Catches his shrieks in cups of gold.''
''A little black thing among the snow Crying "'weep, 'weep," in notes of woe! "Where are thy father & mother? say?" "They are both gone up to the church to pray.''
''For the Eye altering alters all; The Senses roll themselves in fear And the flat Earth becomes a Ball.''
''If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.''
''"What," it will be questioned, "When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?" O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty."''
''Let thy West Wind sleep on The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, And wash the dusk with silver.''
''Opposition is true friendship.''
''He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.''
''When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still.''
''Thinking as I do that the Creator of this world is a very cruel being, & being a worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying: "the Son, O how unlike the Father!" First God Almighty comes with a thump on the head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.''
''A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.''
''The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity ... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.''
''When a man has married a wife, he finds out whether Her knees and elbows are only glued together.''
''My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish'd air, By Love are driv'n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave: Such end true lovers have.''
''England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death, And close her from thy ancient walls?''