"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise"
About this Quote
Blake’s line sounds like a riddle that’s been dipped in acid: a warning posed as a dare. “The fool who persists in his folly will become wise” isn’t praising stubbornness so much as mocking the polite, cautious idea of “wisdom” as something you earn by obeying rules. It comes from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake’s contrarian scripture where moral binaries get flipped until they reveal their seams. In that world, “folly” can be the raw energy of desire, imagination, or rebellion - the very forces Enlightenment-era respectability tried to discipline.
The specific intent is provocation. Blake stages “the fool” as a figure willing to stay inside an experience long enough to exhaust its illusions. Persistence matters: dabbling in stupidity just produces chaos; committing to it can produce knowledge, the way repetition turns improvisation into craft. There’s also a satirical edge: society calls you a fool whenever you refuse its scripts, and Blake is suggesting that the label may be the first badge of independence.
Subtextually, it’s an argument against secondhand virtue. Real insight, Blake implies, is empirical and often embarrassing. You learn by overreaching, by being wrong in public, by following an impulse until it either breaks you or breaks open into understanding. The line flatters risk while keeping a blade at its throat: if you persist and never become wise, you’re just a fool with stamina. That tension is the point. Blake doesn’t hand out comfort; he offers a method.
The specific intent is provocation. Blake stages “the fool” as a figure willing to stay inside an experience long enough to exhaust its illusions. Persistence matters: dabbling in stupidity just produces chaos; committing to it can produce knowledge, the way repetition turns improvisation into craft. There’s also a satirical edge: society calls you a fool whenever you refuse its scripts, and Blake is suggesting that the label may be the first badge of independence.
Subtextually, it’s an argument against secondhand virtue. Real insight, Blake implies, is empirical and often embarrassing. You learn by overreaching, by being wrong in public, by following an impulse until it either breaks you or breaks open into understanding. The line flatters risk while keeping a blade at its throat: if you persist and never become wise, you’re just a fool with stamina. That tension is the point. Blake doesn’t hand out comfort; he offers a method.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | "The fool who persists in his folly will become wise." , William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790–1793). |
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