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

Institutions of restraint manufacture the vices they condemn · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Hypocrisy
• Law
• Religion

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

A folly followed to the end may turn into knowledge · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Error
• Learning
• Wisdom

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”

Greatness is measured by putting another first · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Compassion
• Generosity
• Virtue

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

Self-reliant ascent is not presumption · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Ambition
• Freedom
• Independence

“The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.”

Folly is countable; wisdom belongs to another kind of duration · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Folly
• Time
• Wisdom

“The busy bee has no time for sorrow.”

Work can crowd out self-pity without denying feeling · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Action
• Sorrow
• Work

“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

The timeless is not hostile to what is made and passing · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Creation
• Eternity
• Time

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

The object is shared; the seeing is not · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Nature
• Perception
• Wisdom

“He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.”

Unused longing turns poisonous · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Action
• Consequences
• Desire

“All deities reside in the human breast.”

Gods are inward powers before they become public names · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Gods
• Humanity
• Religion

“How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?”

Ordinary creatures may hide vast interiors our senses cannot enter · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Animals
• Perception
• Wonder

“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.”

Limitation is self-made; infinity is the unfiltered real · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Imagination
• Infinity
• Perception

“Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.”

Reason is a rim around living force, not the source of it · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

• Body
• Energy
• Reason

“If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character, the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.”

Without vision, method hardens into empty repetition · There is No Natural Religion, 1788

• Imagination
• Philosophy
• Progress

“Man's perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he perceives more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover.”

The senses are windows, not walls · There is No Natural Religion, 1788

• Imagination
• Perception
• Senses

“Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.”

Reason is a temporary measure, not a finished cage · There is No Natural Religion, 1788

• Knowledge
• Progress
• Reason

“The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nation's different reception of the Poetic Genius.”

Faiths differ as local readings of one imaginative source · All Religions are One, 1788

• Culture
• Imagination
• Religion

“No man can think, write, or speak from his heart, but he must intend Truth.”

Sincere utterance is already a pledge of truth-seeking · All Religions are One, 1788

• Honesty
• Truth
• Writing

“The Poetic Genius is the true Man, and the Body or Outward Form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius.”

Imagination is first nature; the body is its later shape · All Religions are One, 1788

• Humanity
• Imagination
• Poetry

“The true method of knowledge is experiment.”

Knowing is an act of living trial rather than inherited formula · All Religions are One, 1788

• Experience
• Knowledge
• Learning

“Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.”

Official history is treated as a suspect genre · Annotations to Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible

• History
• Scepticism
• Truth

“Active Evil is better than Passive Good.”

Energy, even when troubling, is preferred to inert virtue · Annotations to Lavater

• Action
• Energy
• Morality

“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”

Love is the measure that breaks finite limits · Annotations to Swedenborg

• Eternity
• Infinity
• Love

“Degrade first the Arts if you'd Mankind Degrade. Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade.”

A fallen public taste is treated as a political injury · Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses

• Art
• Culture
• Taste