quotations about Heaven
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"
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
I cannot be content with less than heaven.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
Heaven answers with us the same purpose that the tuning-fork does with musicians. Our affections, the whole orchestra of them, are apt to get below the concert-pitch; and we take heaven to tune our hearts by.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.
SARAH ADDISON ALLEN
The Sugar Queen
Heaven is always taken by storm.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Elizabeth the Queen
I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
ISAAC ASIMOV
attributed, Philosophy on the Go
If people really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will get in; for I don’t believe there are any locks on that door, or any guards at the gate. I always imagine it is as it is in the picture, where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor Christian as he comes up from the river.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
Many a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his shoes.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
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
They that are reconciled unto God, in the frame and temper of their minds, that live according to the Law of Heaven (the everlasting and immutable rule of goodness, righteousness and truth) may truly be said to have begun Heaven while they are upon the earth.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
We all long for heaven where God is, but we have it in our power to be in heaven with him right now--to be happy with him at this very moment. But being happy with him now means:
loving as he loves,
helping as he helps,
giving as he gives,
serving as he serves,
rescuing as he rescues,
being with him for all the twenty-four hours,
touching him in his distressing disguise.
MOTHER TERESA
A Gift for God
Regard this world as the place to sow seed for eternity, and after taking such a portion from this world as may give you strength to take the journey to the other world, turn away from whatever is more than this. Realize that the future world is the place for enjoyment and happiness which is eternal, and the land to behold the excellence and beauty of the Lord; and make it your purpose, divine and omniscient grace assisting you, never to cease from the pursuit of them, but to secure as your prey, the phoenix of felicity and happiness.
MOHAMMED AL-GHAZZALI
The Alchemy of Happiness
Heaven breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
ALEXANDER POPE
Essay on Man
The problem is, even if there is a Heaven how can there be one we can stand forever?
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
What if earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost