quotations about paradise
So on he fares, and to the border comes,
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.
WALLACE STEGNER
All the Little Live Things
Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored
I'm going blind
And loneliness has to suffice
Bite my lip and close my eyes
I was slipping away to paradise
Some say, "Quit or I'll go blind."
But it's just a myth
GREEN DAY
"Longview"
All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.
TONI MORRISON
interview, Online NewsHour, March 9, 1998
Everything was chocolate ice cream and kisses and wind.
FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK
The Hanged Man
When I write "paradise" I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes -- disease and death and the rotting of flesh.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Down the River", Desert Solitaire
Man and woman left paradise together; if they would return, let it be in the same manner.
E. P. DAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Idle to pretend that we have lost paradise. We never had it; it is still to make.
SUSAN ERTZ
Anger in the Sky
Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there.
ROBERT BURNS
"O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast"
Paradise does not exist, but we must nonetheless strive to be worthy of it.
JULES RENARD
attributed, Nothing to be Frightened Of
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect.
JOHN KEATS
The Fall of Hyperion
Eden is not the thing we seek.
It is the thing we cannot find.
CHRIS ABANI
Sanctificum
The problem with paradise is that it's temporary: You don't belong here and the neighbors are nobody you care to know, so it's only blissful for a week or so.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"God Changes With the Weather", Salon, December 29, 2009
I would gladly wander in Paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.
T'AO CH'IEN
"Shadow Replies", Substance, Shadow, and Spirit
It is by one man's disobedience that Paradise is lost and it is by another man's obedience that Paradise is regained.
MICHAEL F. BIRD
Romans
What is paradise? We can say, in answer to this question, that with this heavenly paradise into which the redeemed at death do enter, the ancient, the earthly paradise is not fit to be compared.
WILLIAM HANNA
The Last Day of Our Lord's Passion
God hides the fires of hell within paradise.
PAULO COELHO
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Certainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. (Paradisical flaws, if you like.) If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.
HENRY MILLER
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
The joys of Paradise and the rapturous delight felt in meeting the radiance of God's countenance will send into oblivion all the anguish of the earthly life.
RABBI JEHUDA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Even paradise could become a prison if one had enough time to take notice of the walls.
MORGAN RHODES
Falling Kingdoms