quotations about Heaven
The Son of the Carpenter made the door of heaven so low that you must either take off your plumes or stoop humbly to enter it.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
I dare not think that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
The First Part of the History of the World: Intreating of the Beginning and First Ages of the Same
Heaven is homelike, we are told,
To beggars as to kings;
And resurrection is a fashion
Antedating wings.
NELLIE SEELYE EVANS
"Equality"
Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
"Gradatim"
There was no pain when I awoke,
No pain at all. Rest, like a goad,
Spurred my eyes open -- and light broke
Upon them like a million swords:
And she was there. There are no words.
Heaven is for a moment's span.
And ever.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET
"The Quality of Courage", Young Adventure
While the wish of many individuals is to arrive at heaven, we daily behold them on the way to hell.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.
BUDDHIST PROVERB
Heaven for climate, and hell for society.
MARK TWAIN
speech to the Acorn Society, 1901
The way of Heaven and Earth may be completely declared in one sentence: They are without any doubleness, and so they produce things in a manner that is unfathomable.
CONFUCIUS
The Doctrine of the Mean
Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven.
PHILLIPS BROOKS
"The Gift and Its Return", Sermons
God is found in this Life ... to wait for another is folly.
DAN SIMMONS
Lovedeath
To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.
TOM ROBBINS
Skinny Legs and All
We speak of Paradise, and we speak of Heaven. At times they seem far off and distant to us. But there is no need for us to change our place, or even planet, in order to enter on these regions. We only need that, when we put off these our bodies, we put off also our present limitations; and thus, in accordance which He has apportioned for us, we enter on those good things He "hath prepared."
ARTHUR FOLEY WINNINGTON-INGRAM
"The Shadow of Heaven", Thoughts on Love and Death
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Damned
Aim at heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither.
C. S. LEWIS
Mere Christianity
Seeking Heaven through righteousness is not seeking righteousness, but something else;--it is not loving goodness for goodness' sake, but for its rewards.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Howling is the noise of hell, singing the voice of heaven.
JOHN DONNE
"Sermon LXVI"
Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There's no reason to receive a reward if you're 57/43--why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med? That's almost impossible to contemplate.
NORMAN MAILER
On God
God is everywhere: yes, but how dim faith is, what a remote idea heaven is, in the modern world!
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
This War is the Passion
I cannot be content with less than heaven.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus