All Quotes By Tag: William-blake

“Remember William Blake who said: “Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.”The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up.But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible–villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word”

“(about William Blake)As for Blake’s happiness–a man who knew him said: “If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me.”And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. …He burned most of his own work. Because he said, “I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy.”…He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. ”