“(about William Blake)[Blake] said most of us mix up God and Satan. He said that what most people think is God is merely prudence, and the restrainer and inhibitor of energy, which results in fear and passivity and "imaginative death."And what we so often call "reason" and think is so fine, is not intelligence or understanding at all, but just this: it is arguing from our *memory* and the sensations of our body and from the warnings of other people, that if we do such and such a thing we will be uncomfortable. "It won't pay." "People will think it is silly." "No one else does it." "It is immoral."But the only way you can grow in understanding and discover whether a thing is good or bad, Blake says, is to do it. "Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."For this "Reason" as Blake calls it (which is really just caution) continually nips and punctures and shrivels the imagination and the ardor and the freedom and the passionate enthusiasm welling up in us. It is Satan, Blake said. It is the only enemy of God. "For nothing is pleasing to God except the invention of beautiful and exalted things." And when a prominent citizen of his time, a logical, opining, erudite, measured, rationalistic, Know-it-all, warned people against "mere enthusiasm," Blake wrote furiously (he was a tender-hearted, violent and fierce red-haired man): "Mere enthusiasm is the All in All!”
“(about William Blake)[Blake] said most of us mix up God and Satan. He said that what most people think is God is merely prudence, and the restrainer and inhibitor of energy, which results in fear and passivity and "imaginative death."And what we so often call "reason" and think is so fine, is not intelligence or understanding at all, but just this: it is arguing from our *memory* and the sensations of our body and from the warnings of other people, that if we do such and such a thing we will be uncomfortable. "It won't pay." "People will think it is silly." "No one else does it." "It is immoral."But the only way you can grow in understanding and discover whether a thing is good or bad, Blake says, is to do it. "Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."For this "Reason" as Blake calls it (which is really just caution) continually nips and punctures and shrivels the imagination and the ardor and the freedom and the passionate enthusiasm welling up in us. It is Satan, Blake said. It is the only enemy of God. "For nothing is pleasing to God except the invention of beautiful and exalted things." And when a prominent citizen of his time, a logical, opining, erudite, measured, rationalistic, Know-it-all, warned people against "mere enthusiasm," Blake wrote furiously (he was a tender-hearted, violent and fierce red-haired man): "Mere enthusiasm is the All in All!”
Brenda Ueland
“By encouraging the critic in themselves (the hater) they have killed the artist (the lover).”
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit“This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.”
Brenda Ueland“Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time you are incomparable.”
Brenda Ueland“Everybody is talented original and has something important to say.”
Brenda Ueland“When we are listened to it creates us makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.”
Brenda Ueland“Inspiration does not come like a bolt nor is it kinetic energy striving but it comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time.”
Brenda Ueland“Orthodox criticism ... is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented having the most imagination and sympathy these are the first ones to get killed off.”
Brenda Ueland“It is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come.”
Brenda Ueland“We are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good true and serious.”
Brenda Ueland“In true courage there is always an element of choice of an ethical choice and of anguish and also of action and deed. There is always a flame of spirit in it a vision of some necessity higher than oneself.”
Brenda UelandAll in One Creative & Marketing Platform to tell stories at scale
