William Blake Art Quotations

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

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.

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

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

Am not IA fly like thee?Or art not thouA man like me?

When Sir Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded

The Whole Business of Man is The Arts, & All Things Common.

Little fly, thy summer's play My thoughtless hand has brushed away. Am not I a fly like thee? Or art not thou a man like me? For I dance and drink and sing, Till some blind hand shall brush my wing!

The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the spirit.

The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen's opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.

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 the 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 immediately to the understanding or reason?

Thou art a man God is no more Thy own humanity Learn to adore

It is the greatest of crimes to depress true art and science.

None but blockheads copy each other.

What has reason to do with the art of painting?

The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.

Art degraded, Imagination denied.

The ignorant Insults of Individuals will not hinder me from doing my duty to my Art

Rome & Greece swept Art into their maw & destroy'd it; a Warlike State never can produce Art. It will Rob & Plunder & accumulate into one place, & Translate & Copy & Buy & Sell & Criticize, but not Make.

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.

Works of Art can only be produc'd in Perfection where the Man is either in Affluence or is Above the Care of it.

Harmony of colouring is destructive of art? it is like the smile of a fool.

Where there is money there is no art.

The mocker of Art is the mocker of Jesus.

Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on.

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.

Christianity is art and not money. Money is its curse.

First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.

I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me.

Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done. Practice is Art. If you leave off you are lost.

When nations grow old the Arts grow cold And commerce settles on every tree

The Sick Rose 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.