Quotes about hell
A collection of quotes on the topic of hell, going, likeness, heaven.
Best quotes about hell

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
True origin unknown. Finest Hour described it as "not verifiable in any of the 50 million published words by and about him" ( Finest Hour, The Journal of Winston Churchill, Number 145, Winter 2009–10, p. 9 https://www.winstonchurchill.org/images/finesthour/vol.01%20no.145.pdf). A similar quotation: "If you're going through hell, don't stop!" is "plausibly attributed" to Oregon self-help author and counselor Douglas Bloch (1990), according to Quote Investigator.
Misattributed
Variant: If you're going through hell, keep going
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/14/keep-going/

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
Source: The Duchess of Padua

“Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.”

“You go to Heaven once you've been to Hell”
Source: Song Paper Thin Hotel

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
Variant: Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Source: Paradise Lost

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Quotes about hell

“All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”

Other

“If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
Source: Abiola Abrams The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love: The 11 Secrets of Feminine Power http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ILK0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT30, El Dorado Publishing, 25 June 2014, p. 30

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

“Each place has its own advantages - heaven for the climate, and hell for the society.”

“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.”
Keynote speech at "Celebrating Inspiration" luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, quoted in Mechelle Voepel, ESPN (July 13, 2006)
2000s

Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed

Source: The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

“I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.”
Une Saison en Enfer http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Season.html (A Season in Hell) (1873)
Variant: I believe I am in Hell, and so I am there.

“I don't care If I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.”
"Duterte: Look ma, cheap shoes no socks" http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/710288/duterte-simple-lifestyle-has-served-me-well-in-govt' (August 5 2015)

https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.Txt
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 14
“IF THE ZOO BANS ME FOR HOLLERING AT THE ANIMALS I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL”
[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/205052027259195393]
Tweets by year, 2012

To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther’s Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966).
Context: I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.

“Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we need of hell”

“many pass for saints on earth whose souls are in hell.”
Source: The Bondage of the Will

“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise”

“The truth is, honey, I've enjoyed my life. I've had a hell of a good time.”

Source: Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays

Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g-U2-cAUMM

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Mother Courage
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
Nahj al-Balagha

Quote from Bevridge translation of the Baburnama https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp#page/n663/mode/2up
“I'm a sinner so Jesus please, help me pass and graduate so I'd make it to hell, feel me?”
Never Told Me (2018)

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.

Speech on Civil Liberties http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1939/12/09/speech-of-president-quezon-on-civil-liberties-december-9-1939/, delivered on the occasion of the interuniversity oratorical contest held under the auspices of the Civil Liberties Union at the Ateneo auditorium, Manila, on December 9, 1939
Variant: I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans
Context: It is true, and I am proud of it, that I once said, “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” I want to tell you that I have, in my life, made no other remark which went around the world but that. There had been no paper in the United States, including a village paper, which did not print that statement, and I also had seen it printed in many newspapers in Europe. I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner. I said that once; I say it again, and I will always say it as long as I live.

“I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will.”


“Be a duck, remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.”

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.”
Variant: I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Variant: I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be.... religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.

“Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.”
Act III, scene viii; often paraphrased: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". A similar line occurs in Love's Last Shift, by Colley Cibber, act iv.: "We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman".
The Mourning Bride (1697)
Variant: Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
Context: Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

“If there are junk yards in hell, love is the dog that guards the gates.”
Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.”
As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 239

Biography - John Wayne Gacy: Monster in Disguise. A & E Home Video, 2000. Watched March 1, 2010.

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

About Ernie Terrell before their February 1967 boxing match, - ( YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVZYo2MYmfg
Source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=6ClZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=I+think+Terrell+will+catch+hell+at+the+sound+of+the+bell&source=bl&ots=2atsVuDXae&sig=ACfU3U0qSka952BOrSsGqAg13ji8vvdxPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK1sa854jvAhWY_J4KHe0xAf0Q6AEwEnoECAQQAw#v=onepage&q=I%20think%20Terrell%20will%20catch%20hell%20at%20the%20sound%20of%20the%20bell&f=false Ali: The Official Portrait of "The Greatest" of All Time

as quoted in Khushwant Singh, The Freethinker's Prayer Book (2013), p. 35

“Mind can make a hell of heaven. Or a heaven of hell.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Dead Man Talking http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/apr/22/mcveigh.usa, The Observer (April 22, 2001)
2000s

In response to Diệm and Nhu, assassination in a coup d’état led by General Dương Văn Minh (Armed Forces Council) http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2013/10/05/

Canto III, lines 40–42 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBqoaW2oEsU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgawker.com%2F5256086%2Fted-nugent-is-the-new-mike-tyson%3Fautoplay%3Dtrue&feature=player_embedded
On himself
Hakol omrim sh'yesh olam hazeh v'olam haba. V'hine, ba'olam habah anu ma'aminim sh'yeshno, efshar sh'yesh olam hazeh b'eize olam, ki kan nir'a sh'hu ha'geheinom, ki kulam m'le'im yisurim gedolim tamid, v'amar she'ein nimtza shum olam hazeh klal.
אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל
Attributed

“An Angel's smile is what you sell, You promise me heaven then put me through hell.”
You Give Love A Bad Name
Music, Slippery When Wet (1986)

Henry Powell Spring in 1944; popularized by John F. Kennedy misquoting Dante (24 June 1963) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1211.html. Dante placed those who "non furon ribelli né fur fedeli" [were neither for nor against God] in a special region near the mouth of Hell; the lowest part of Hell, a lake of ice, was for traitors.
According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx President Kennedy got his facts wrong. Dante never made this statement. The closest to what President Kennedy meant is in the Inferno where the souls in the ante-room of hell, who "lived without disgrace and without praise," and the coward angels, who did not rebel but did not resist the cohorts of Lucifer, are condemned to continually chase a banner that is forever changing course while being stung by wasps and horseflies.
See Canticle I (Inferno), Canto 3, vv 35-42 for the notion of neutrality and where JFK might have paraphrased from.
Misattributed

“There are no facts inside the building, so get the hell outside.”
Forbes "Try 'Walking The Path' To Solve Your Startup Problems" http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2015/10/27/try-walking-the-path-to-solve-your-startup-problems/#6cb0ab3a5c64. October 27, 2015.

“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”
As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

“We're such self-centered crap we don't even notice Hell itself rising up against us.”
As heard in "Jones Iver - Alex Jones Rants as an Indie Folk Song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWd6XgBVIcg by Nick Lutsko, released on the Super Deluxe YouTube channel (14 July 2017)

"As I Please," Tribune (3 March 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup>
As I Please (1943–1947)

“I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.”
Interview by David Brancaccio, NOW (PBS) (7 October 2005) http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/vonnegut.html
Various interviews
Context: [When Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

On her dark night of spiritual desolation amidst devotion, in a letter addressed to Jesus, as quoted in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007) edited by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, p. 192; regarding this quote, Fr. Kolodiejchuk writes: "...when addressing Jesus — that is, in prayer — she could express herself with ease. Fufilling her confessor's request, she sent to him a letter addressed to Jesus, enclosing it with her letter dated September 3, 1959." https://books.google.com/books?id=P4cqT0nK_joC&pg=PA192&dq=%22when+addressing+Jesus+-+that+is,+in+prayer+-+she+could+express+herself+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk0IOm5vTOAhVF1x4KHYdRDE4Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20addressing%20Jesus%20-%20that%20is%2C%20in%20prayer%20-%20she%20could%20express%20herself%20%22&f=false
1950s
Context: My own Jesus,
They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God – they would go through all that suffering if they had just a little hope of possessing God. In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing (Jesus, please forgive my blasphemies, I have been told to write everything). That darkness that surrounds me on all sides. I can’t lift my soul to God – no light or inspiration enters my soul. I speak of love for souls, of tender love for God, words pass through my words sic, lips], and I long with a deep longing to believe in them! What do I labour for? If there be no God—there can be no soul.—If there is no soul then Jesus—You also are not true... Jesus don't let my soul be deceived—nor let me deceive anyone. In the call You said that I would have to suffer much.—Ten years—my Jesus, You have done to me according to Your will—and Jesus hear my prayer—if this pleases You—if my pain and suffering—my darkness and separation gives You a drop of consolation—my own Jesus, do with me as You wish—as long as You wish, without a single glance at my feelings and pain... I beg of You only one thing—please do not take the trouble to return soon.—I am ready to wait for You for all eternity.

In a public lecture at Bangalore in 1934, from [Singh, R, 2010, Letters to the Editor: Indian scientists vs. science and religion, http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/july-aug10/Letter%20to%20editors.pdf, Science and Culture, 76, 7-8, 206]

Source: Posted on instagram @angelovulpini, September 2nd, 2021.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTVVtsfrRvh/

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones