Twice Thoughts

— William Blake — The following are from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" in Selected Poetry and Prose of William Blake, Northrop Frye (ed.):

p. 134. One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.

p. 135.      Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn no longer, in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren — whom, tyrant, he calls free — lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious lechery call that virginity that wishes but acts not!

For every thing that lives is Holy.


— William Blake, from "A Vision of the Last Judgment," in Ibid., p. 399:
....I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. "What," it will be Questioned, "When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?" O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty." I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight. I look thro' it & not with it.

— William Blake, from his "Marginalia" (various), in Ibid.:
p. 441. Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man, as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness. But God is a man, not because he is so perceiv'd by man, but because he is the creator of man.

p. 444. Prophets, in the modern sense of the word, have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Ninevah failed. Every honest man is a Prophet; he utters his opinion both of private & public matters. Thus: if you go on So, the result is So. He never says, such a thing shall happen let you do what you will. A Prophet is a Seer, not an Arbitrary Dictator. It is man's fault if God is not able to do him good, for he gives to the just & to the unjust, but the unjust reject his gift.

p. 452. "The errors of genius ... are pardonable ..." — J. Reynolds Discourses
Genius has no Error; it is Ignorance that is Error.

p. 453. If Art was Progressive We should have had Mich. Angelos & Raphaels to succeed & to Improve upon each other. But it is not so. Genius dies with its Possessor & comes not again till Another is Born with It.