Quotes from The Complete Illuminated Books

William Blake ·  480 pages

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“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
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Popular quotes

“The purpose of consciousness—any consciousness—was to achieve infinite comprehension. It was as simple as that. If a God existed, humanity must strive to discover this God and help this deity become omniscient, not just in one infinity, but in an infinity of infinities. This was one possible purpose for her species. But her alter ego, using symbolic logic, had arrived at a possibility she considered much more likely: that humanity’s purpose, together with all life across all universes, was not to discover God—it was to become God. If a single human egg could possess consciousness at the instant of fertilization, how would it view itself? It couldn’t possibly predict or comprehend the multi-trillion-celled being it would ultimately become. The entirety of humanity could well be that single, fertilized cell, unaware that it would grow a trillion-fold more complex and eventually become God, perhaps had already become God, in a universe in which all pasts, presents, and futures existed side by side. Humanity was composed of separate individuals now, but an embryo at early stages was also nothing more than a ball of separate cells. But these separate cells would ultimately become connected in wondrous ways to create something unimaginably greater than themselves. And seen in this light, altruism and sociopathy were far from straightforward concepts, beyond even the complexities that Abraham Lincoln had revealed. Absolute altruism on one level could be absolute selfishness in disguise on another, and vice-versa. The cells making up the human body were selfless; gladly sacrificing themselves when necessary for the good of the organism. On the microscopic level they were being foolishly altruistic, foolishly suicidal, but on the macroscopic level they were being purely selfish—ensuring the survival of the body. And what happened when an individual cell became selfish and exhibited Nietzsche’s will to power? It became a cancer. The cell would break free of the restraints on its own division and become immortal—for a while—until its very immortality choked the entire organism to death, killing the selfish cell in the process.”
― Douglas E. Richards, quote from Wired


“Wszystko to jednak nie było w stanie stłumić naszego niepokoju na myśl o tym, że obóz sowiecki pozbawił miliony swych ofiar jedynego przywileju, jaki dany jest każdej śmierci – jawności – i jedynego pragnienia, jakie odczuwa podświadomie każdy człowiek – przetrwania w pamięci innych.”
― Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, quote from A World Apart


“Printing dollars at home means higher inflation in China, higher food prices in Egypt and stock bubbles in Brazil. Printing money means that U.S. debt is devalued so foreign creditors get paid back in cheaper dollars. The devaluation means higher unemployment in developing economies as their exports become more expensive for Americans. The resulting inflation also means higher prices for inputs needed in developing economies like copper, corn, oil and wheat. Foreign countries have begun to fight back against U.S.-caused inflation through subsidies, tariffs and capital controls; the currency war is expanding fast.”
― James Rickards, quote from Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis


“But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls


“The financial crisis we are facing today arises from the fact that there is almost no more social, cultural, natural, and spiritual capital left to convert into money.”
― Charles Eisenstein, quote from Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition


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