The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

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.

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

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

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

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

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

For every thing that lives is Holy.

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

Expect poison from the standing water.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion

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.

Without contraries there is no progression.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

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.

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

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.

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.

A dead body revenges not injuries.

Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as the nether sky appeared beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said: if you please we will commit ourselves to this void and see whether providence is here also.

Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

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.