“Proverbs of Hell” [in Full] by William Blake [w/ Audio]

I

II

III

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

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

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plough.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock,
but of wisdom no clock can measure.

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

Bring out number, weight, and measure in a year of dearth.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

A dead body revenges not injuries.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Folly is the cloak of knavery.

Shame is Pride's cloak.

Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Excess of sorrow laughs, excess of joy weeps.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves,
the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword,
are portions of Eternity too great for the eye of man.

The fox condemns the trap, not himself.

Joys impregnate, sorrows bring forth.

Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.

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

The selfish smiling fool and the sullen frowning fool
shall be both thought wise that they may be a rod.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit watch the roots;
the lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant watch the fruits.

The cistern contains, the fountain overflows.

One thought fills immensity.

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

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted
to learn of the crow.

The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.

Think in the morning, act in the noon, eat in the evening,
sleep in the night.

He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you.

As the plough follows words, so God rewards prayers.

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

Expect poison from the standing water.

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

Listen to the fool's reproach; it is a kingly title.

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

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

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.

If others had not been foolish we should have been so.

The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion
of Genius. Lift up thy head!

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves
to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse
on the fairest joys.

To create a little flower is the labour of ages.

Damn braces; bless relaxes.

The best wine is the oldest,
the best water the newest.

Prayers plough not; praises reap not; joys laugh not;
sorrows weep not.

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

As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
so is contempt to the contemptible.

The crow wished everything was black,
the owl that everything was white.

Exuberance is Beauty.

If the lion was advised by the fox,
he would be cunning.

Improvement makes straight 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.

Truth can never be told so as to be
understood and not to be believed.

Enough! or Too much.

* * *
The ancient poets animated all sensible
objects with Gods and Geniuses, calling
them by the names and adorning them with
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes,
cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged
and numerous senses could perceive.

And particularly they studied the Genius of each
city and country, placing it under its mental deity.

Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of and enslaved 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 pronounced that the Gods
had ordered such things.

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

“Proverbs of Hell” [3 of 3] by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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.

If others had not been foolish we should have been so.

The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion
of Genius. Lift up thy head!

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves
to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse
on the fairest joys.

To create a little flower is the labour of ages.

Damn braces; bless relaxes.

The best wine is the oldest,
the best water the newest.

Prayers plough not; praises reap not; joys laugh not;
sorrows weep not.

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

As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
so is contempt to the contemptible.

The crow wished everything was black,
the owl that everything was white.

Exuberance is Beauty.

If the lion was advised by the fox,
he would be cunning.

Improvement makes straight 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.

Truth can never be told so as to be
understood and not to be believed.

Enough! or Too much.

* * *
The ancient poets animated all sensible
objects with Gods and Geniuses, calling
them by the names and adorning them with
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes,
cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged
and numerous senses could perceive.

And particularly they studied the Genius of each
city and country, placing it under its mental deity.

Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of and enslaved 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 pronounced that the Gods
had ordered such things.

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

“‘Faith’ is a fine invention” (202) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

"Faith" is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!

BOOK: “Toleration and Other Essays” by Voltaire

A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays (Great Minds Series)A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays by Voltaire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Project Gutenberg — Free Access

This collection gathers together eight essays and a poem. The theme that interconnects these works is a petition to avoid petty tribalism and irrationality / superstition in the practice of one’s religion. The titular essay, “On Toleration,” sets the collection’s tone, beginning with its detailing of the murder of Jean Calas on religious grounds and its exploration of many more acts of savagery attributable to sectarian forces in alliance with authoritarian governments. The poem, “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster,” echoes the central idea of “Candide” — i.e. the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds is patently false.

As one would expect of Voltaire, there is plenty of humor and satire throughout these pieces. The arguments are also generally well supported by facts. It is clear that Voltaire possessed a great deal of the knowledge of his day. That said, the reader may well find some factual errors. Most notably, Voltaire tends to attribute a kind of enlightened utopian vision to cultures with which he was likely largely unfamiliar as he builds a case against many within the culture with which he is familiar. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some truth to Eastern traditions being historically more tolerant of other sects than the Abrahamic religions, but the degree to which he extends these idyllic views of those outside of Europe (and the details, thereof) don’t always seem to comport with the historic record.

While some may be inclined to dismiss this book as a collection of anti-religion writings, it is really not anti-belief at all. (Though he does poke holes in many a Biblical myth, so too does he actually provide a deist argument in favor of the existence of a god or gods in the book’s final essay.) Instead, the collection is anti-intolerance, anti-superstition, and anti-authoritarianism. I’d highly recommend this book for all readers. Whatever flaws it may contain are outweighed by the great importance of its message and the cleverness with which Voltaire conveys said message.

View all my reviews

BOOKS: “Christianity: A Very Short Introduction” by Linda Woodhead

Christianity: A Very Short IntroductionChristianity: A Very Short Introduction by Linda Woodhead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Page OUP

The central idea of this book is that (despite all the complexity of schisms, sects, and subsects) the various entities that call themselves Christian can be put into one of three categories: church, biblical, or mystical. These groups reflect where the adherents see the ultimate source of authority. Church Christians, exemplified by Roman Catholics, view the hierarchy of clergy as the ultimate authority. Biblical Christians, e.g. Baptists, see the Bible as the highest authority. Finally, mystics see the individual’s relationship with (or connection to or oneness with) God to be what matters.

Bookending elaboration upon those three forms of Christianity, there is an opening that discusses early development of the Christian religion and the dividing lines that characterized it (e.g. whether Jesus was man, god, or a bit of both,) and there is a closing chapter about modern Christianity that explores various modern movements, such as: liberal Christianity, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, and charismatic Christianity.

If you’re interested in understanding the various permutations of Christianity (past and present,) and how they developed and differentiated themselves, this is a fine introduction to the subject.

View all my reviews

BOOKS: “Teachings of the Christian Mystics” ed. by Andrew Harvey

Teachings of the Christian Mystics (Shambhala Pocket Library)Teachings of the Christian Mystics by Andrew Harvey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Acquired at Blossom Bookhouse

This book gathers a collection of short writings (mostly paragraph to a few page excerpts as well as a few poems) on mystic Christianity from the time of the Gospels through the twentieth century. While the bulk of the pieces are (if not from scriptures) the work of clergymen and / or theologians, there are some by individuals known elsewise (e.g. poets William Blake and Gerard Manley Hopkins.) The book is arranged somewhat, but not perfectly, chronologically — enough that all the Biblical excerpts are lumped together at the beginning to form about the first quarter of the selections. While there are a number of one-off contributors, there are several pieces from each of: Gregory of Nyssa, the Desert Fathers, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Eckhart von Hochheim.

One nice feature of this book is that it does include selections from a wide range of sources (Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant) over a range of time periods, and from scriptures both canonical and “apocryphal.” So, there are many varied ideas of the mystical experience and the path thereto. The flipside of this fact is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cohesiveness to the collection. It isn’t always clear why Harvey (the editor) thought a given excerpt was representative of mystic teachings versus of mainstream Christianity. There is a substantial introduction, but otherwise the selections are left to speak for themselves.

Still, it was a quick read, dense with insights, and I found — particularly some of the scriptural selections — to be among the most profound statements of Christian philosophy that I’ve seen.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded” by Dana Sawyer

The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclinedThe Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclined by Dana Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: July 9, 2024

The good news is that this book does a thorough, clear, and balanced job of discussing Perennial Philosophy along a number of dimensions including metaphysics, psychology, theology, and aesthetics. The bad news is that it can lead one to believe there IS NO Perennial Philosophy, just a hodge-podge of (often disparate) assumptions about the grand metaphysical questions of life, the universe, and everything, assumptions that are usually Eastern, mystical, or both and which appeal to the kind of person who likes to say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” but which are all over the place, intellectually speaking. We learn more about the varied metaphysical perspectives that can be lumped under rubric Perennial Philosophy, than we learn of any internally consistent set of beliefs which distinguish the Philosophy from others. Sawyer does acknowledge that there is not a unified worldview that is Perennial Philosophy and that, instead, one must think in terms of “family resemblance.” The problem is that Perennial Philosophy displays the kind of family resemblance seen in a foster home. One can believe in a god or not, believe in a soul / persistent self or not, one can hold any number of beliefs about time, causation, creation, and other aspects of metaphysics. Sawyer does solidly distinguish Perennial Philosophy from Materialism, but it’s not clear why we needed it, given we already had various permutations of Idealism.

The book does provide a lot of food-for-thought, if often frustratingly so. The most important thing it does is lay out the various questions at the fore of Perennial Philosophy, how they’ve been addressed by different thinkers, and the crux of discord.

I did find myself disturbed by the arguments on occasion. A prime example is when Sawyer writes about students who describe themselves as non-spiritual but who enjoy going hiking. Because Sawyer couches the experiences that are had on a good hike in spiritual terms, he believes the students are wrong to describe themselves as “non-spiritual.” However, it’s far from clear why they need to twist their interpretations into line with his worldview. I suspect that his “non-spiritual” students, like me, see in “spiritual” types a need to escape the surly bonds of nature, to have magic exist in their worlds, something above and beyond nature. I see “spiritual” people as having a craving like the proverbial true-believer / flood victim whose neighbors come by in a truck and a boat to rescue him (and then rescue services come by with a helicopter,) but he turns them all down because “God Will Save Me!” Then he dies and goes to heaven and berates God for letting him drown, to which God says, “I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What do you want from me?” Well, he wanted a divine golden light to levitate him not some mundane solution based in the natural world; he wanted magic, rapturous rescue.

If you are interested in the various debates between Materialism and Idealism, this book is well worth reading, and if you describe yourself as “Spiritual, but not religious,” you’ll probably really love it.

View all my reviews

Five Wise Lines [April 2024]

Diogenes Sitting in His Tub by Jean-Leon Gerome (1860)

Of what use for us is a man who, although he has long practiced philosophy, has never upset anyone?

Diogenes of sinope on Plato, according to themistius

The superstition that we must drive from the Earth is that which, making a tyrant of God, invites men to become tyrants.

Voltaire in On Superstition

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

T.S. Eliot in Tradition and the Individual talent

What’s the difference between a king and a poor man if they would both end the same bundle of white bones.

Zhuangzi

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Carl sagan (Note: There are variations on this quote that long predate Sagan’s)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

You live off the crumbs that fall from the festive table of my genius.

Kurban Said in Ali and Nino [Not so much wisdom as a wicked burn]

To roam Giddily and be everywhere, but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.

John donne in a Poetic letter to rowland woodward

Lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, it is the feeders, rather, who are the lion’s slaves. For fear is the mark of a slave, and wild beasts make men fearful.

Diogenes the cynic

BOOKS: “The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic” by Jean-Manuel Roubineau

The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the CynicThe Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic by Jean-Manuel Roubineau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This is a translation of a French book about the life and philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic. It’s a thin volume, as there is much that’s unknown about the life of Diogenes, and the dearth of surviving texts means that some of what is believed about Diogenes and Cynic philosophy maybe corrupted by the reports of detractors. I learned a great deal from reading this book, but not because I learned much new about Diogenes, himself. The colorful anecdotes from his life have been extensively discussed.

With respect to what I did learn, it largely fell into three categories. First, I gained insight into the context and environment in which Diogenes lived. Second, I discovered that many of the stories of Diogenes’ life are far less certain than we have been led to believe through the presentations of them in so many books. For example, we know Diogenes was exiled from his native Sinope in relation to a scheme involving currency debasement. This is often straightforwardly stated as “Diogenes was a counterfeiter,” but Roubineau shows that we don’t know much (if anything) about the degree to which Diogenes was involved (i.e. whether he was mastermind, accomplice, or an unwitting pawn.) Third, I benefited from the comparing and contrasting of Cynic philosophy with that of predecessors (e.g. Socratics) and successors (e.g. Stoics,) and – in a few cases – comparisons between Diogenes and other Cynics.

The book consists of four chapters. The first is a discussion of what is known about Diogenes as a historical figure. The second focuses on the Cynics views on economy, wealth, and related ideas. The third explores the Cynic view of the human body and related topics like sex, pleasure, and pursuit of health and well-being. The last chapter considers Diogenes as a teacher and the Cynic approach to practicing philosophy.

I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in philosophy.


View all my reviews