Auguries of Innocence Suffering Quotes

When a bird gets wounded, an angel gets hurt too—that's what Blake is saying. Since "all that lives is holy" (in the words of Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"), a bird is as important in God's eyes as a human or an angel.

This is a complicated one—apparently, the caterpillar reminds people of Eve, the "Mother" of humanity, whose sin in eating the forbidden fruit led humanity to fall from Eden. For Blake, the fall from Eden caused the creation of the natural world (which is really an illusion) and the descent of the spirit into lower life forms (like caterpillars, which feed off the natural world).

If you're not expecting everything to be sunshine and roses, you'll have a better time—you'll be prepared for suffering and won't have a lot of faulty expectations.