Proverbs....

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Proverbs of Hell: William Blake

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

Drive your cart and plow over the bones of the dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

She who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

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

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

All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.

Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.

No bird soars too high, if she soars with her own wings.

The most sublime act is to set another before you
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If the fool would persist in her folly she would become wise.

Folly is the cloke of knavery.

Shame is Pride’s cloke.

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

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

The fox condemns the trap not himself.

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

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

What is now proved was once, only imagin’d.

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

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

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

Expect poison from the standing water.

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

The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

If others had not been foolish, we should be so.

To create a little flower is the labour of ages.

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.

Exuberance is Beauty.

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

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

Where man is not nature is barren.

Enough! or Too much

Between two moments, bliss is ripe.

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 realise or abstract the mental deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.

Choosing forms of worship from Poetic tales.

And at length they announced that the Gods had ordered such things.

Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

- William Blake (1757-1827)