The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Quotes

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing 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

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

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“For every thing that lives is Holy.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Exuberance is beauty.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Expect poison from the standing water.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion”
― william blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Without Contraries is no Progression.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.

Isaiah answer'd, I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm'd; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Dip him in the river who loves water.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc’d that the Gods had order’d such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murder'd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Shame is Prides cloke.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations

“The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The cut worm forgives the plow.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“A dead body revenges not injuries.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell