William Blake God, Morality, Heaven.
William Blake’s views on God, heaven and morality
William Blake’s views on God, heaven and morality were deeply unconventional. He rejected rigid institutional religion and the idea of a distant, rule-making God. Instead, he believed that the divine lives directly within the human imagination, and that true morality comes from raw emotional honesty rather than restrictive laws.
William Blake (1757–1827) English poet, painter, printmaker and visionary, I would say a saint, who understood human folly as well as the institutionalized folly of the Churches and hierarchy, his radical artistic and philosophical ideas went largely unrecognized during his lifetime, as the institutions did not like that they were ridiculed by him, he fiercely rejection the Church as an institutionalized religion with a belief in the divinity of the human imagination, he created intensely expressive works, Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Here are some of his most powerful quotes on these themes, drawn from his poetry and prophetic books:
On God and the Divine Human
Blake famously argued that God is not a king in the sky, but the divine spark inside humanity itself.
“God becomes as we are, that we may be as we are.” — There is No Natural Religion
“Thou art a Man, God is no more, Thine own Humanity learn to adore.” — The Everlasting Gospel
“All deities reside in the human breast.” — The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
On Heaven, Hell, and Perception
For Blake, heaven and hell were not physical destinations after death, but states of mind and ways of seeing the world.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.” — Auguries of Innocence
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.” — The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The prison cells of the world are built with stones of Law; the 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.” — The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
On Morality and the Danger of Restriction
Blake detested “Thou Shalt Not” morality, believing that suppressing human desires and instincts only creates hypocrisy and cruelty.
“He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise.” — Eternity
“Cruelty has a Human Heart, And Jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And Secrecy the Human Dress.” — The Human Abstract
“So I turn’d to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys and desires.” — The Garden of Love