Quotations by William Blake

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827), ENGLISH ENGRAVER, ARTIST, MYSTIC AND A SEMINAL POETIC FIGURE OF THE 19^TH CENTURY ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

~ William Blake, The Tyger

“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.”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”

~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
  For man has closed himself up till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

 “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair”

~ William Blake, The Clod and the Pebble

“My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.”

~ William Blake, Infant Sorrow

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”

~ William Blake, Proverbs of Hell from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.”

~ William Blake, Eternity

“The buried soul and all its gems.      
This life’s five windows of the soul
Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,        
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not thro’, the eye”

~ William Blake, The Everlasting Gospel

“And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,”

~ William Blake, The Little Black Boy

“Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be
For the gentle wind does move
Silently invisibly”

~ William Blake, Never Seek to Tell thy Love

“For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress”

~ William Blake, The Divine Image

“The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Children of the future age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time,
Love, sweet Love, was thought a crime!”

~ William Blake, A Little Girl Lost

“And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.”

~ William Blake, A Poison Tree

“I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.”

~ William Blake, Jerusalem

“The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”

~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Continue Reading

Quotations by John Keats

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) WAS A MAJOR ENGLISH POET OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

~ John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

 “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;”

~ John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

“… life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree's summit;…”

~ John Keats, Sleep and Poetry

“Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;”

~ John Keats, A Song of Opposites

“To Sorrow,
I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”

~ John Keats, Endymion

“And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain.
The lady's heart beat quick, and he could see
Her gentle bosom heave tumultuously.
He sprang from his green covert: there she lay,
Sweet as a muskrose upon new-made hay;
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes
Shut softly up alive.”

~ John Keats, Endymion

“This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--
I hold it towards you.”

~ John Keats, This Living Hand

“And when thou art weary I’ll find thee a bed
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head;”

~ John Keats, To Emma

“Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,
What can I do to kill it and be free”

~ John Keats, What can I do to drive away

“Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.”

~ John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes

“When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.”

~ John Keats, When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

~ John Keats, Endymion: A Poetic Romance

“When by my solitary hearth I sit,
When no fair dreams before my “mind’s eye” flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.”

~ John Keats, To Hope

“Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams,
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glories
That smile us on to tell delightful stories.”

~ John Keats, Bright Star

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death”

~ John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

Continue Reading

Quotations by Jane Austen

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) IS A LEADING 19TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVELIST.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."

~ Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

~ Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

~ Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”

~ Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”

~ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

~ Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.
It is something to think of”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”

~ Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

~ Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.”

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.”

~Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”

~ Jane Austen, Emma

“It is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best”

~ Jane Austen, Emma

“An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.”

~Jane Austen,  Mansfield Park

Continue Reading