William Blake — Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.William Blake
William Blake, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'
Blake defends the detour. Efficiency straightens a path, and something is lost in the straightening — the wandering that stumbles onto what planning would never find.
Your odd route through English — the tangents, the words you learned for no practical reason — is not wasted time. It is where your voice is forming.
Words that widen the world
Bent or twisted; not straight.
Synonyms: winding, bent, meandering
The crooked road took longer and taught more.
Exceptional creative or intellectual power.
Synonyms: brilliance, originality, gift
There was genius in the detour.
Common questions
It suggests that efficiency produces straight, predictable paths, while wandering and imperfection can lead to original, inspired discoveries.
From William Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' (c. 1790).
Carry it with you
In your own words, what does this thought mean to you? Write three or four sentences in English about a moment when it felt true — saying it yourself is how it stays with you.
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