72 Lines To Jump-Start Your Brain

Gretchen Rubin
Updated
What is now proven was once imagined
FlickrA line from English poet and painter William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell



I love paradoxes, koans, parables, proverbs, Secrets of Adulthood, and aphorisms. Last night, I started to think about poet William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, from his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, so I went to re-read it.

I'd forgotten how much I loved it, so I'm re-posting it today.

Blake's "Hell," by the way, is not the traditional Hell, but a place of "unrepressed, somewhat Dionysian energy" (at least that's what Wikipedia says).

These proverbs are thought-provoking. When I read them, I feel like I've had a jump-start to my brain -- new, unexpected thoughts come to me.

I don't agree with all of these proverbs, and I certainly don't understand all of them, but I love reading them. I've put some of my favorites in bold:

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