Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

Meaning of the quote

The quote means that having energy and excitement about life is a wonderful thing that will last forever. But if you just want things and don't actually do anything about it, it can lead to problems and sickness. In other words, acting on your desires is important, not just thinking about them.

About William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker who lived during the Romantic Age. Although largely unrecognized in his lifetime, he is now considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual art. His diverse and symbolically rich works embraced the imagination as the essence of human existence.

More about the author

More quotes from William Blake

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Christ’s crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel’d to heaven is no artist.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The eye altering, alters all.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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!

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

To generalize is to be an idiot.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Exuberance is beauty.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

What is now proved was once only imagined.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

One thought fills immensity.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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!

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Opposition is true friendship.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Every harlot was a virgin once.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

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.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

William Blake

English poet and artist (1757-1827)