Quote on Heaven

When all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Doctor Faustus

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

No fountain so small but that Heaven may be imaged in its bosom.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, American Note-Books, 1836

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
EMILY DICKINSON, "I never saw a Moor"

If we would know what heaven is before we come thither, let us retire into the depths of our own spirits, and we shall find it there among holy thoughts and feelings.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, American Note-Books, 1841

To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY, letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, July 1, 1925

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, First Inaugural Address, Apr. 30, 1789

The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.

ANATOLE FRANCE, The Revolt of the Angels

Ascensions into heaven are like falling leaves
sad and happy all at the same time
Going away isn't really sad
especially when your going
enables a new kind of presence
to be born.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, Seasons of Your Heart

Heaven is always taken by storm.

MAXWELL ANDERSON, Elizabeth the Queen

Ordinary men, to whom all things are possible, don't often, if ever, think of Heaven. It is a name, and nothing more, and they are content to wait and let things be, but to those who are doomed to be shut out for ever you cannot think what it means, you cannot guess or measure the terrible endless longing to see the gates opened, and to be able to join the white figures within.

BRAM STOKER, "A Dream of Red Hands"

Union with God is the only heaven there is, and it begins here on earth.

MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, A Tree Full of Angels

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

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

Hatred unlocks no doors in heaven.

WILLIAM F. DEVAULT, "idol of Clay"

God is found in this Life ... to wait for another is folly.

DAN SIMMONS, Lovedeath

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 is homelike, we are told,
To beggars as to kings;
And resurrection is a fashion
Antedating wings.
NELLIE SEELYE EVANS, "Equality"

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

While the wish of many individuals is to arrive at heaven, we daily behold them on the way to hell.

WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY, Proverbs

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

THOMAS MOORE, "Come Ye Disconsolate"

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

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

May Heaven exist, even if my place is Hell.

JORGE LUIS BORGES, "The Library of Babel"

Heaven is commonly conceived of as a place, a locality; and somewhere in God's universe it is supposed there is a spot where elemental storms never deform the sky, where inward sorrow never cankers the heart. There is rest after labor, peace after conflict, smiles after tears, and such happiness as quenches all fiery memories of former pain; and the common or popular notion is, that when good men leave this world, they are translated, that is, transported to heaven, as an aeronaut sails off in a balloon. The falsity of this view Christ exposes, when he says, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." In the words of Holy Writ, the kingdom of heaven is to fear God, and keep his commandments. It is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and our neighbor as ourselves. It is to do to others as we would be done by.

HORACE MANN, Thoughts

It is possible that the distance of heaven lies wholly in the veil of flesh, which we now want power to penetrate. A new sense, a new eye, might show the spiritual world compassing us on every side.

WILLIAM E. CHANNING, Thoughts

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

Entrance into Heaven is not at the hour of death, but at the moment of conversion.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, Moral and Religious Aphorisms

I tell you, Heaven is a real, literal, physical place, a city as material, as physical, as literal as Chicago or London or New York or Tokyo.

JOHN R. RICE, Bible Facts about Heaven

Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers; the only password is prayer.

HOSEA BALLOU, Edge-Tools of Speech

Who has not found the Heaven — below —
Will fail of it above —
EMILY DICKINSON, "Who has not found the Heaven below"

You must receive something of heaven into the soul, before the soul can be received into heaven.