quotations about Heaven
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"
Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Of all the inventions of man I doubt whether any was more easily accomplished than that of a Heaven.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook L", Aphorisms
God is found in this Life ... to wait for another is folly.
DAN SIMMONS
Lovedeath
Amid the discords of this life, it is blessed to think of heaven, where God draws after him an everlasting train of music; for all thoughts are harmonious and all feelings vocal, and so there is round about his feet eternal melody.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Heaven is homelike, we are told,
To beggars as to kings;
And resurrection is a fashion
Antedating wings.
NELLIE SEELYE EVANS
"Equality"
Aim at heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither.
C. S. LEWIS
Mere Christianity
Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect.
RICHARD BACH
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Heaven for climate, and hell for society.
MARK TWAIN
speech to the Acorn Society, 1901
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Damned
To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.
BUDDHIST PROVERB
To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.
TOM ROBBINS
Skinny Legs and All
When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers,
The moon and the stars that you have prepared,
What is mortal man that you keep him in mind,
And a son of man that you take care of him?
DAVID
Psalms 8:3-4
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
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
You will say, how can one reach heaven to lay anything there? I will ask you also another question. How can a man being in France reach into England to lay anything there? By exchange.... You know that to avoid the danger of pirates and the inconvenience of foreign coin not current at home, it is the use of merchants to pay it there, to receive it here. Such a thing is there in this "laying up." We are here as strangers; the place where we wish ourselves is our country, even paradise--if so be we send our carriage thither before; if not, I fear we intend some other place, it is not our country.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Howling is the noise of hell, singing the voice of heaven.
JOHN DONNE
"Sermon LXVI"
If you keep your eyes so fixed on Heaven that you never look at the Earth, you will stumble into Hell.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Already in the sacred bowl
I've quaff'd oblivion, and my rapturous soul
Heav'n's harbour gains full sail!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Dying Christian", Poetical Meditations
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