William Blake vs the World Quotes

“Your politics are not what you tell yourself you believe. They are not the set of ideas that you identify with, or look to for personal validation of your goodness as a human being. Your politics are expressed in the choices that you make, the way you treat other people, and the actions you perform.”
― John Higgs, William Blake vs. the World

“Like our minds, Urizen has no knowledge of what he doesn’t know and deep down this terrifies him, because it threatens his very sense of identity. He will attempt to belittle, mock, or otherwise deny evidence that there is more than he knows, and that he is not the powerful creator he thinks he is. Deeply insecure, Urizen is the aspect of our minds that needs not just to be right, but to be thought of as right. You will recognise him immediately if you use social media.”
― John Higgs, William Blake vs. the World

“In theory, there should be no way that something with no material aspect could impact a physical system. However, this happens all the time, for example when the idle thought, ‘I wonder what’s in the fridge?’ results in a physical human walking across the kitchen, opening the fridge and eating some cheese. This was a problem that deeply troubled the French philosopher René Descartes. Eventually, he managed to hand-wave it away by claiming, with no real justification, that the immaterial and material interacted through the pituitary gland in the brain. In the centuries that have followed, much effort has been expended in seeking a less arbitrary answer.”
― John Higgs, William Blake vs. the World

“Our choice of hell or heaven, in other words, is a question of whether we prefer looking in the mirror or looking at the wider world. Regardless of which heaven or hell we choose, we always convince ourselves that our choice was the right one. A person who becomes more cynical and pessimistic as they age will tell themselves that they are becoming wiser, for example, even though in the eyes of others they are becoming bitter.”
― John Higgs, William Blake vs. the World