Quotes from The Complete Illuminated Books

William Blake ·  480 pages

Rating: (2.8K votes)


“none can desire what he has not perceiv'd.”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books


“He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books


“Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceiv'd.”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books


“And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books


“He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books



“VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.”
― William Blake, quote from The Complete Illuminated Books


About the author

William Blake
Born place: in Golden Square, London, England, The United Kingdom
Born date November 28, 1757
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“That depends on how Washington reacts. Every state joined the Union voluntarily; they should have the right to leave it again if the Federal government no longer represents their best interests.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Candle in the Darkness


“. . . What do you wish to be? What would you like to become?”

I did not know, and I told her so, but the question worried me. Should I know?

“There is time,” she said, “but the sooner you know, the sooner you can plan. To have a goal is the important thing, and to work toward it. Then, if you decide you wish to do something different, you will at least have been moving, you will have been going somewhere, you will have been learning.”
― Louis L'Amour, quote from The Lonesome Gods


“We’ve elevated the secondary impulses over the primary ones: national defense, self-reliance, family, and, most basic of all, reproductive activity. If you don’t “go forth and multiply” you can’t afford all those secondary-impulse programs, like lifelong welfare, whose costs are multiplying a lot faster than you are.”
― Mark Steyn, quote from America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It


“[T]he United States in the 1920s,” writes William Leuchtenburg, “had almost no institutional structure to which Europeans would accord the term ‘the State.’” Beyond the post office, most people had very little interaction with or dependence on “the government in Washington.”38 The New Deal changed all that. It represented the last stage in the transformation of American liberalism, whereby the U.S. government became a European “state” and liberalism a political religion.”
― Jonah Goldberg, quote from Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning


“-they were still practicing the fiendishly difficult pattern at the end of the act where the diagonal lines of swans cross over and dissolve to form three groups: unequal groups, since the number seventeen is notoriously difficult to divide by three.”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from A Company of Swans


Interesting books

The Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn
(793)
The Twelve Kingdoms:...
by Fuyumi Ono
Islands in the Net
(4.5K)
Islands in the Net
by Bruce Sterling
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
(1.5K)
The Chronicles of Ma...
by Barry Hughart
In Conquest Born
(2.5K)
In Conquest Born
by C.S. Friedman
Silence in October
(465)
Silence in October
by Jens Christian Grøndahl
The Pleasures of the Damned
(4.2K)
The Pleasures of the...
by Charles Bukowski

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.