“In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death, be it heaven, hell, purgatory or extinction, one thing has never been in doubt - that you would at least know the answer when you were dead.”

—  Douglas Adams , book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Douglas Adams 317
English writer and humorist 1952–2001

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“Aquinas and Augustus of Hippo, both proposed this extraordinary idea that babies who were unbaptised would not know heaven. They also proposed the idea of purgatory which doesn’t exist in The Bible. There’s absolutely no evidence for it. However, what an extraordinary brilliant coup to imagine such a thing as purgatory. That a soul needs to be prayed for, in order to go to heaven. In order to turn left when he enters the aeroplane of heaven and get a first class seat. That, he needs to be prayed for. And many hundreds, indeed over a thousand years, you’ll be amazed what generous terms those prayers came at. Sometimes as little as two thirds of a year’s salary. Could ensure that a dead loved one would go to heaven. And money could ensure that your baby. Your dead child, your dead uncle, your dead mother, could go to heaven. And if you were rich enough, you could have a chantry built and monks would permanently sing prayers so that that existence in heaven for the child would go up and up and up until they were at the table of the Lord themselves.”

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“Do you know, a horrible thing has happened to me. I have begun to doubt Tennyson.”

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“Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?”

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“There is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised—we do not hear of them any more. What became of them? If there was a man in this city who had been raised from the dead, I would go to see him to-night. I would say, “Where were you when you got the notice to come back? What kind of a country is it? What kind of opening there for a young man? How did you like it? Did you meet there the friends you had lost? Is there a world without death, without pain, without a tear? Is there a land without a grave, and where good-bye is never heard?””

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“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

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Original Latin: Veritatem inquirenti, semel in vita de omnibus, quantum fieri potest, esse dubitandum
Variant translation: If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.
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Variant: In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

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“What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?”

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“If you are anxious about death, then you don't have a sense of the oneness of things—you feel that after death, you will be no more.”

Sidney Poitier (1927) American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and diplomat

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“What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realize the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. (…).”

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“I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now — I don't suppose I shall ever meet anything greater.”

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Source: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), Ch. 8
Context: I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now — I don't suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it — and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die — I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which — thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you — is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before.

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