Quotes about hell
page 13

“The title of poet's a noble thing, worth living and dying for,
Though all the devils on earth and in Hell spit at me their disdain.
It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun
And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men:
But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done,
Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

Main Street and Other Poems (1917), The Proud Poet

Men, Sun, Heart

“I mean," he says, "how the hell do you think it feels? Sitting there and having the plane explode?”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Feeling, Thinking

“Oxycodone is a hell of a drug”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

Catch Phrases
Source: http://current.com/shows/countdown/episodes/2012-01-19

“In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain (1940)

God, Forgiveness, Question, Past

“Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space.”

Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969) British baronet

The Scarlet Tree, Bk. IV, ch. 1 (1946).

“"Oh, goddamn! What the hell?!" [opens fire, then laughs] "Suppressing fire!"”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Insurgency (standalone) (January 29, 2014)

“"I guess I want things to be like they were before. Hell, we're almost ready to graduate." "Tell you what, Carter," Archie said. "Let things stay the same as before, like you just said. Let the last days come and go. Graduation. But that's not the end of it, Carter. You were a traitor and you're going to pay for that. Some way, someday. Not tomorrow, not next month. Or even next year, maybe. But someday. And who knows? Maybe next month, after all. That's a promise, Carter. When you least expect it. When everything is rosy and beautiful. Then comes the payoff. Because you can't be allowed to get away clean, without paying for it, Carter."”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 208

Beauty, Way

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Women, Fear, School, Feeling

“We're just going to play the hell out of it until they can't take it anymore.”

Shingai Shoniwa (1981) British musician

http://www.indietastic.net/cms/2007/06/noisettes_interview.html

“Prayer is the pillar of your religion and one who intentionally forsakes his prayer has destroyed his religion. And one who does not guard the times of the prayers, shall be made to enter ‘Wayl’, which is a valley in Hell, as Allah, the Exalted, has said: "So woe to the praying ones, who are unmindful of their prayers."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar,Volume 82, Page 202
Shi'ite Hadith

Religion, Time

“No matter how [haram terrorists'] life has been, if they wanna get to heaven, they just have to kill non-Muslims in a holy jihad. That's all they have to do, then they get to heaven. It's like an easy "card out" for Muslims who've behaved badly their whole life. And we've seen this time and time again with the terrorists that we find. They say, "He wasn't a practicing Muslim". No, but because of the scripture in Islam, he genuinely believes he is going to eternal hell fire for the life that he's lived. He sees going and running down 20 or 40 people, and killing coppers, and killing innocent people, he sees that as a "get out" because of the scripture in Islam. That's why.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Tommy Robinson Interview on Westminster Terror Attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G54TKESUoLU, YouTube (22 March 2017)

Life, People, Time

“These (i. e., the statements of the Nicene Creed) are all empirical statements about reality: they are either true or false, even if some are hard to investigate.
These claims, of course, absolutely conflict with those of other faiths. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Muslims believe that those who do so will spend eternity in hell. Doesn’t choosing among such faiths require a way to evaluate whether this dogma is true?”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 51

Faith, Way, Reality, Falseness

“Most religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, have three features that are foreign to science. The most important is religion’s linkage to moral codes that define and enforce proper behavior, behavior supposedly reflecting God’s will. The second is the widespread belief in eternal reward and punishment: the notion that after death not just your fate but everyone else’s depends on adherence to conduct mandated by your religion. And the third is the notion of absolute truth: that the nature of your god, and what it wants, is unchanging. While some believers see their ability to fathom God’s nature as limited, and don’t accept the notion of a heaven or hell, the certainty of religious dogma is ar more absolute and far less provisional than the pronouncements of science.
This combination of certainty, morality, and universal punishment is toxic. It is what leads many believers not only to accept unenlightened views, like the disenfranchisement of women and gays, opposition to birth control, and intrusions into people’s private sex lives, but also to force those views on others, including their own children and society at large, and sometimes even to kill those who disagree.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 219-220

Death, Women, God, Fate

“The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing.”

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) English clergyman

"Apples of Sodom," part II, sermon XX of Twenty-Five Sermons for the Winter Half-Year, Preached at Golden Grove (1653)

Light

“So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone—
Where it's always double drill and no canteen.
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gunga Din, Stanza 5.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

Soul, Drink

“He explained that hatred was low. However, for the benefit of the more leathery and zealous deacons down front, he permitted them to hate all Catholics, all persons who failed to believe in hell and immersion, and all rich mortgage-holders, wantoning in the betraying smiles of scarlet women, each of whom wore silk and in her bejeweled hand held a ruby glass of perfidious wine.”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Elmer Gantry (1927)

Women, Hate, Smile, Wine

“There is absolutely no point in being healed in our bodies, then dying in our sins and spending an eternity in hell. It would be better to die of cancer and go to heaven because of that cancer, then to live in perfect health and end up in hell.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

More Than Just Comfort: An Answer to Cancer (c. 1979)

Health, Perfection

“Does he [A N Wilson] really believe that there is no nostalgia for the triumphant days of the Third Reich among that proud and valorous race, or that they have forgiven and forgotten that in two great wars the English-speaking people beat the hell out of them, humiliated them, conquered them?”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

The Europe Fiasco. p. 76.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

War, People, Nostalgia

“You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."
"I was ninety percent sure."
"I see," Clary said.
There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"The other ten percent."
Clary and Jace, pg. 83-4
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Pain

“Manchester is the chimney of the world. Rich rascals, poor rogues, drunken ragamuffins and prostitutes form the moral; soot made into paste by rain the physique, and the only view long chimney: what a place! The entrance to hell realised!”

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

The life and opinions of General Sir Charles James Napier, Volume 2

World, Past

“It was you it was me it was every man
We've all got the blood on our hands
We only receive what we demand
and if we want hell then hells what we'll have.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Cookie Jar
Song lyrics, On and On (2003)

“In order to save the world, Jesus Christ suffered for about thirty-six hours on the cross. I am willing to suffer an eternity in hell for the same cause.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 26

World, Suffering, Christ

“Sometimes it as though I were in hell and I do not grieve. I do not find anything to grieve over.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

A veces estoy en un infierno y no me lamento. No encuentro de qué lamentarme.
Voces (1943)

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016) 2010s, 2016, August

Pain, Youth, School, Way

“Can we change the world? No, but hell, we can all try.”

Rupert Murdoch (1931) Australian-American media mogul

Source: News Corp : Making of a global media business http://www.icmr.icfai.org/casestudies/catalogue/Business%20Strategy3/BSTA076.htm

World, Change

“I can't see heaven but I credit hell —
I live in New York so I know it well.
When they shut out heaven with the Fuller Dome
God gave it up and He went home.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

the happening world (6) "Street Seen"
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

God, Home

““Neither War nor Violent Death,” Morgenes had written, “have anything uplifting about them, yet they are the candle to which Humanity flies again and again, as complacently as the lowly moth. He who has been upon a battlefield, and who is not blinded by popular conceptions, will confirm that on this ground Mankind seems to have created a Hell on Earth out of sheer impatience, rather than waiting for that original to which—if the priests are correct—most of us will eventually be ushered.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 20, “The Shadow of the Wheel” (p. 302).

Death, War, Waiting

“The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Aeneis, Book VI, lines 192–195.
The Works of Virgil (1697)

Way, Night

“When an idealist is 20 he thinks he can make a real difference in the world. At 30 he still thinks so but realizes that a great many people stand in the way. At 40 he realizes that they will never get out of the way. Part of maturity is to accept the fact that we cannot change the world; the world is hell-bent in another direction and not interested in what we have to say or offer. Maturity does not mean giving up your ideals or giving up the fight, but it does mean giving up your illusions--being "dis-illusioned", seeing things as they really are, not "if only."”

Donald Vroon (1942) American music critic

"On Spiritual Matters", American Record Guide, Jul/Aug2004

People, World, Way, Thinking

“How can I join one of the parties? All their slogans and propaganda, it seems so damn - silly. How the hell can I get exited about clean teeth and underarm odor. People kill each other over these trifles… it doesn't make sense. There's going to be suicidal civil war, if that amendment passes, and I'm supposed to join one side or the other?”

Philip K. Dick book The Chromium Fence

"The Chromium Fence"
The Phillip K. Dick Reader

War, People, Sense, Suicide

“The problem with Christian belief--I mean real Christian belief, the belief that there is a God and a devil and a heaven and a hell--is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God, Fashion, Problem

“The point is that, like Richard Hell says, rock 'n' roll is an arena in which you recreate yourself, and all this blathering about authenticity is just a bunch of crap. The Clash are authentic because their music carries such brutal conviction, not because they're Noble Savages.”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

"The Clash" (December 1977), p. 227
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

Music

“I never had a Marxist phase. If I did it lasted a weekend, and it must have been a hell of a weekend because I don’t remember it…”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2015, Interview with Bill Kristol (2015)

“Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Act 1, sc. 5
Variant translation: Among murderers. We are in hell, my dear, there is never a mistake and people are not damned for nothing.
No Exit (1944)

People

“Back in the late 1950s, on the sleeve of the Beyond the Fringe record album, Jonathan Miller made a dark joke about his worst fear: being tortured for information that he did not possess. The assumption behind the joke was that if he had something to reveal, the agony would stop. He was looking back to a world of polite British fiction, not to a world of brute European fact. In the Nazi and Soviet cellars and camps, people were regularly tortured for information they did not possess: i. e. they were tortured just for the hell of it.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Terry Gilliam', p. 279
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

People, World, Fear

“Ah, beloved, have not you need to improve your time, who have much work to do in a short time: your souls to save, a God to honour, a Christ to exalt, a hell to escape, a race to run, a crown to win, temptations to withstand, corruptions to conquer, afflictions to bear, mercies to improve, and your generation to serve.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Hypocrite Detected, Anatomized

God, Soul, Affliction, Time

“The song ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ was written speciﬁcally for me, but they had one line that I wouldn’t sing. It was ‘What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?’ I said, ‘There’s not a chance in hell am I going to sing this line,’ because we still had lots of really deep memories of the kids throwing jelly beans and toys on stage; and I thought that that if we ever did get out there again, I was not going to be bombarded with tomatoes.”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 242

Memory, Singing, Chance, Help

“May Heaven exist, even if my place is Hell.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Library of Babel

Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno.
"The Library of Babel" (1941)
Variants:
I cannot think it unlikely that there is such a total book on some shelf in the universe. I pray to the unknown gods that some man — even a single man, tens of centuries ago — has perused and read this book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification.
May Heaven exist, even if our place is Hell.
"Deutsches Requiem". (Emece edition, 1974)

“It's like a vicious cycle. How the hell could you turn around and be a buyer with all of this stuff going on?”

Jack Baker Head of equities at Putnam Lovell Securities

[Meghan, Collins, http://money.cnn.com/2003/02/13/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm, Stocks get war whiplash, CNNMoney.com, February 13, 2003, 2007-05-22]

“In the countries of the ancient world, even before the formation of the empire, slavery was the basis of society. In each was a capitalist class and a slave class. The capitalists, however, were constantly in fear of slave insurrection. The dread clouded their sunshine by day, and nightmared their sleep; for they saw, piling up against them, a discontent hell-deep and heaven-high.”

Bouck White (1874–1951) American author and novelist

Source: The Call of the Carpenter (1914), p. 8

World, Fear, Sleep, Country

“The one thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I was an athlete. The hell with the rest of this stuff.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Barack Obama Reveals How He Popped the Question to Joe Biden, People Magazine, August 25, 2008, 2008-08-26 http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20221223_2,00.html, 2000s

“There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.”

Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer

"Authors", p. 68.
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I

World, Suffering

“We are the fed up grass roots movement of goose flesh, hell bent on living this one life by the way we feel our spines, saying what we mean, refusing to allow the few to preach to the many when it is the many who need to be hearing eachother.”

Buddy Wakefield (1974) American poet

Introduction (Some They Can't Contain)
On Spoken Word

Life, Way, Feeling, Grass

“Who teh heLL R u 2 tELL me what 2 reed or how 2 spel?”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter Four, Screw U or Hate My Professors, p. 120 (spelling as per text...)

“I had a couple of endorsements but they never came to nothing. I don't want any. I don't need them. If the people who give them don't think Latins are good enough, I don't think they are good enough. The hell with them. I make endorsements in Spanish countries, and give the money to charity.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "'Nobody Does Anything Better Than Me in Baseball,' Says Roberto Clemente....Well, He's Right," by Roy Blount, Jr. (as C.R. Ways), in The New York Times Magazine (April 9, 1972), p. 42; reprinted as "Clemente's Time of Honor Has Come" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1qNhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xGwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7369%2C3839734 in The Pittsburgh Press (Tuesday, April 25, 1972), p. 31 Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

Money, People, Thinking, Country

“The new Germany is a democracy. So was the old Germany, or it tried to be: but then the Nazis got on, and Hell broke loose. It can break loose anywhere: all people have hellish propensities.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

People, Democracy

“The modern institution of the presidency is the primary political evil Americans face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. Teachers used to tell school kids that anyone can be president. This is like saying anyone can go to Hell. It’s not an inspiration; it’s a threat.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

6 October 1996 "Down With the Presidency" http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/down-presidency.html 1990s

War, People, Lie, School

“A violent propaganda campaign was launched by Carey and his associates against Hinduism in Bengal which seemed to them to be in a state of dissolution. But Hindu orthodoxy reacted vigorously and Lord Minto felt obliged to prohibit such propaganda in Calcutta. Minto's letter to the Court of Directors is worth quoting: `Pray read the miserable stuff addressed specially to the Gentoos (Hindus) in which... the pages are filled with hell fire, and hell fire and with still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men, for believing in the religion which they were taught by their fathers and mothers...”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

Men, Religion, Quotes, Reading

“I have faith in the universe, for it is rational. Law underlies each happening. And I have faith in my purpose here on earth. I have faith in my intuition, the language of my conscience, but I have no faith in speculation about Heaven and Hell. I'm concerned with this time—here and now.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 94

Faith, Law, Universe, Time

“I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

As quoted in a eulogy for Darrow by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1938)

God, Thinking, Universe

“All those large dreams by which men long live well
Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

Source: This Last Pain' (1930), Line 21.

Men, Dreams

“When our churches look inward instead of outward, we're basically saying to nonbelievers, "You can just go to hell."”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

“Putin said I was a genius. I do say this: Wouldn't it be wonderful if we actually could get along with Russia and China and some other countries that we don't get along with, and then we go out and knock the hell out of ISIS? Wouldn't it be nice if we cleaned that mess up? Wouldn't it be smart?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

At an interview with The New York Times'<nowiki/> Maureen Dowd. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/opinion/trumps-thunderbolts.html (July 29, 2016) 2010s, 2016, July

Country

“She slides in and you rode down Main Street, you turn right when that red light turns green.
Sun sets now, you're half way to heaven.
She picks a song, you turn it up to 11, you say "Do you wanna?" and she says "Hell yeah." So you hit the party, all your buddies are jealous.
Someday, you'll be looking back on your life at the memories, this is gonna be one of those nights.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

One of Those Nights
Song lyrics, Two Lanes of Freedom (2013)

Life, Way, Light, Memory

“Infernal gods, who rule the shades below,
Chaos and Phlegethon, the realms of woe;
Grant what I've heard I may to light expose,
Secrets which earth, and night, and hell inclose!”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Richard Maitland, 4th Earl of Lauderdale, The Works of Virgil, Translated Into English Verse (1709), Aeneid, Book VI, lines 328–331, p. 210
Misattributed

God, Secret, Light, Night

“Liberals were intimidated by the Reagan administration and did not want to appear naive by talking about programs that called for government support. I just said, 'The hell with that. I'm out there. I'm exposed with this book.”

William Julius Wilson (1935) American sociologist

Interview with Mother Jones.

Books, Support, Appearance

“Blue, round, miserable moon, full of magic, picture that draws like a magnet, pale-coloured, charmed jewel, made by sorcerers; swiftest of dreams, cold traitor, brother to the ice, most evil and unkind of servants, let hell consume the hateful, thin, bent-lipped mirror!”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Lleuad las gron gwmpas graen,
Llawn o hud, llun ehedfaen;
Hadlyd liw, hudol o dlws,
Hudolion a'i hadeilws;
Breuddwyd o'r modd ebrwydda',
Bradwr oer a brawd i'r ia.
Ffalstaf, gwir ddifwynaf gwas,
Fflam fo'r drych mingam meingas!
"Y Drych" (The Mirror), line 25; translation from Carl Lofmark Bards and Heroes (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1989) p. 96.

Hate, Dreams, Evil, Drawing

“In the days of madness, my brother, my sister,
When you're dragged toward the Hell-mouth,
You will beg for the end, but there ain't gonna be one, friend,
For the grave will spew you out! It will spew you out!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), City of Refuge

Sister, Madness

“Dialogue in Hell:
Twenty-First Dialogue

Machiavelli: I am afraid that you are somewhat prejudiced against loans;… modern economists today expressly recognize that, far from impoverishing the state, public debts enrich it. Will you allow me to explain how?
Montesquieu:…. I should first of all like to know from whom you will ask so much capital, and for what reason you will ask it.
Machiavelli: For that, foreign wars are a great help. In the great states, they permit the borrowing of five or six hundred millions; one manages so as to spend only half or two-thirds, and the rest finds its place in the treasury for domestic expenditures.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

War, Help

“So I will find my fears and face them
or I will cower like a dog
I will kick and scream or kneel and plead
I'll fight like hell to hide that I've given up”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Another Travelin' Song
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)

Fear, Dogs, Fight

“The way I was raised was that you can pick whatever you want to do in life, just try to be the best in the world at it. I'm a very proud person and if I'm putting my pride on the line every time I fight, there's no way in hell I'm going to allow anyone else to work harder than me. Plus, I love to train now. When I have to take a break I'm bored out of my mind. I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not fighting. It's my niche - it's just what I'm meant to do.”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"MMAPlayground Interview Series - Vol. 13 ("Rowdy" Ronda Rousey)", in MMAPlayground.com (8 November 2011) http://www.mmaplayground.com/forums/topic49792-1.html

Love, Life, World, Way

“The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe." "As belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary than ever that someone believe… Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

White Noise (1984)

People, World

“The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

rawilson.com website/blog entry (mid 1990s)

“Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from hell.”

Philip James Bailey Festus

Festus (1839)

Envy

“Social equality does not necessarily follow from civil equality, and yet for the purpose of a hell black and damning prejudice, our papers still insist that the Civil Rights Bill is a Bill to establish social equality. If it is a Bill for social equality, so is the Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men have equal rights; so is the Sermon on the Mount, so is the Golden Rule, that commands us to do to others as we would that others should do to us; so is the Apostolic teaching, that of one blood God has made all nations to dwell on all the face of the earth; so is the Constitution of the United States, and so are the laws and customs of every civilized country in the world; for nowhere, outside of the United States is any man denied civil rights on account of his color.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech at the Civil Rights Mass-Meeting Held at Lincoln Hall (22 October 1883), as quoted in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass https://archive.org/stream/lifetimesoffrede1881doug/lifetimesoffrede1881doug_djvu.txt (1881). 1880s, Speech at the Civil Rights Mass Meeting (1883)

Men, God, World, Law

“My young friend who was taught that she was so sinful the only way an angry God could be persuaded to forgive her was by Jesus dying for her, was also taught that part of the joy of the blessed in heaven is watching the torture of the damned in hell. A strange idea of joy. But it is a belief limited not only to the more rigid sects. I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God's loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love… Origen held this belief and was ultimately pronounced a heretic. Gregory of Nyssa, affirming the same loving God, was made a saint. Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love — and of our own free will.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Love, God, People, World

“There was not one of my blood, in or out of the Union Army who was not either serving and sacrificing at home or suffering and dying among the hills and valleys of the southland for the preservation of the Union. And yet, so bitter was the politics of the time that they had to undergo the suspicion of being disloyal to their country because they did not vote the Republican ticket. My grandfather and my father were notified by the Methodist preacher whose church they attended that he would have to strike their names off the roll if they continued to vote the Democratic ticket. My grandfather, as a fiery Virginian, announced that he was willing to take his chance on Hell but never on the Republican party.”

Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) American politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States

Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter VI

Home, Suffering, Chance, Time

“I'd never show up a pitcher by standing in the batters box and watching how far the ball goes like a lot of players do now. But it made me feel good to know I could hit a ball longer than anyone else. It tickled the hell out of me. It was like playing in a golf tournament and hearing all the ohhs and ahhs when you hit a good drive. I mean, every time I swung at it I was trying to hit it longer than the time before. I'm sure that was why I struck out so much, but I'd get a kick out of it. Poor Casey would get so mad. He'd say, "Hey butcher boy, just make contact."”

Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) Professional baseball player

But he couldn't get me to change. In fact, Whitey told me just last year that I'd shut my eyes just before I lunged. As quoted in "IT'S OUTTA HEEERRE!!!: A New Generation of Sluggers Invites Tape-Measure Comparisons" http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-21/sports/sp-26487_1_home-run.

Feeling, Boy, Change, Time

“To have a crowd like this on our final day, can you believe it, this is the day. This is the day we take our country back. Remember that. This is the day we take our country back. So I got a little notice in case you see it. It's security guys. We have wonderful security guys. They said, "Mr. Trump, there may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience." So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously… Okay? Just knock the hell… I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise. I promise. There won't be so much cause the courts agree with us too. What's going on in this country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-knock-the-crap-out-of-tomato-throwers/2016/02/01/1d1fe1e2-c92b-11e5-b9ab-26591104bb19_video.html (1 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

Guy, Country

“Once again, Apple has seized the early lead, launching a revolutionary product that is taking the world by storm. … In its short life, Google's Android operating system has captivated developers and stolen mindshare from Apple… [Apple] is coming under increasing scrutiny for being a domineering control freak hell-bent on secretly undermining its competitors … the movie is starting the same way. And so far, at least, Apple is showing no signs of doing anything differently.”

Henry Blodget (1966) American equity research analyst

Hey, Apple, Wake Up — It's Happening Again http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-hey-apple-wake-up-it-2010-1 in Business Insider (5 January 2010)

Life, World, Way

“I'm a good friend, but I'm a hell of an enemy. As your enemy, I want your demise. When I feel that in my heart it burns till I die.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=CEDUJVE3P05PLQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml&page=2
On himself

Feeling, Heart

“Let that ancient dragon, Cadalus, take note. Let this disturber of the Church, this destroyer of apostolic discipline, this enemy of man’s salvation understand. Let him beware, I say, this root of all sin, this herald of the devil, this apostle of Antichrist. And what else shall I call him? He is the arrow drawn from the quiver of Satan, the rod of the Assyrian, the son Belial, "the son of perdition, who rises in his pride against every god, so called, ever object of men’s worship" (2 Thess. 2:3-4), the whirlpool of lust, the shipwreck of chastity, the disgrace of Christianity, the ignominy of bishops, the progeny of vipers, the stench or the world, the filth of the ages, the shame of the universe. Still more epithets for Cadalus can be added, a list of darksome names: slippery snake, a twisting serpent, the dung of humanity, the latrine of crime, the dregs of vice, the abomination of heaven the expulsion from paradise, the fodder of hell, the stubble of eternal fire.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 120:13. Damian to young King Henry IV, A. D. 1065 or 1066, wherein Damian exhorts Henry to use his sword against the disturber of the Church’s peace, Cadalus, the bishop of Parma, the antipope Honorius II (d. 1072): The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, 1998, Letters 91-120, Owen J. Blum, Irven Michael Resnick, trs., Catholic University of America Press, ISBN 0813208165 ISBN 9780813208169, vol. 5, pp. 393-394. http://books.google.com/books?id=Vlspdtjmhd4C&pg=PA393&dq=%22Let+that+ancient+dragon,+Cadalus,+take+note%22&hl=en&ei=QVpiTIjeIIG88gaFq-SVCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Let%20that%20ancient%20dragon%2C%20Cadalus%2C%20take%20note%22&f=false

Men, God, Age, World

“The Merciful Beholding of His Countenance of love fulfilled all earth and descended down with Adam into hell, with which continuant pity Adam was kept from endless death. And thus Mercy and Pity dwelleth with mankind unto the time we come up into Heaven.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 51

Love, Death, Time

“Like any great performer, Rosa pulls you in, and I found myself leaning forward, and really paying attention…but most of all, trying to figure out what the HELL she was saying”

Colleen Fitzpatrick (1972) American singer and actress

Discussing Rosa, a contestant on The Wb's Superstar USA
Attributed

“Someone finally understood all the “hell” that I’d been through since a child when I’d first tried to understand language. And yet in other forms of communications, like painting, sculpture, music, math, problem-solving, and chess, I’d been very good. In fact, in high school, once I learned how to play chess, I’d play lightning-fast, intuitively seeing all these different possibilities at the same time, and I’d won well over a hundred chess games without losing a single game. And that included beating some of our faculty members who thought that they were very good at chess.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

School, Music, Game, Communication

“Ah, well… hell is full of burning boats, did you know that, Nadir? I daresay that's what makes it so bloody hot.”

Susan Kay Phantom

Erik (p. 289)
Phantom (1990)

“[ When war begins then hell openeth. ]”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

War

“I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Death, Secret, Family, Beauty

“I wonder that all things seem to be from hell these days: dates, jobs, parties, weather …. Could the situation be that we no long believe in that particular place? Or maybe we were all promised heaven in our lifetimes, and what we ended up with can't help but suffer in comparison.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Generation X (1991)

Suffering, Help, Weather

“There're so many young guys, you know — young Americans and, yes, young men everywhere — a whole generation of people younger than me who have grown up feeling inadequate as men because they haven't been able to fight in a war and find out whether they are brave or not. Because it is in an effort to prove this bravery that we fight — in wars or in bars — whereas if a man were truly brave he wouldn't have to be always proving it to himself. So therefore I am forced to consider bravery suspect, and ridiculous, and dangerous. Because if there are enough young men like that who feel strongly enough about it, they can almost bring on a war, even when none of them want it, and are in fact struggling against having one. (And as far as modern war is concerned I am a pacifist. Hell, it isn't even war anymore, as far as that goes. It's an industry, a big business complex.) And it's a ridiculous thing because this bravery myth is something those young men should be able to laugh at. Of course the older men like me, their big brothers, and uncles, and maybe even their fathers, we don't help them any. Even those of us who don't openly brag. Because all the time we are talking about how scared we were in the war, we are implying tacitly that we were brave enough to stay. Whereas in actual fact we stayed because we were afraid of being laughed at, or thrown in jail, or shot, as far as that goes.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

The Paris Review interview (1958)

Men, War, People, Guy

“I don't see why the young in Prague or Budapest or Warsaw shouldn't be allowed to go to hell in a handcart if they want to. They do it everywhere else and they have great fun doing so.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Using words to paint pictures of "magical" Prague (2006)

“Satan, being fallen from light to darkness, from felicity to misery, from heaven to hell, from an angel to a devil, is so full of malice and envy that he will leave no means unattempted, whereby he may make all others eternally miserable with himself.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

Angels, Light, Envy

“Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.
.........
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; 13
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!”

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) English poet

Mother Hubberds Tale, line 895; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Fear, Hope, Soul

“If it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

At his 2004 hearing, regarding his conduct of an interrogation. [Department of the Army, 43rd Military Police Detachment (CID)(FWD), 10th Military Police Battalion, United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, Memorandum, Subject: CID Report Of Investigation – Final – 0152-03-CID469-60212-5C1A/5C2/5T1, February 6, 2004, http://www.aclu.org/files/projects/foiasearch/pdf/DODDOACID000105.pdf, September 28, 2010]
2000s

Men