Quotes about eternity
page 7

Jodi Picoult photo
William Blake photo

“Energy is eternal delight.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Lawrence Ferlinghetti photo

“Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919) American artist, writer and activist

Source: Americus, Book I

Woody Allen photo

“Eternal nothingness is O. K. if you're dressed for it.”

Getting Even (1971), My Philosophy
Variant: Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

Haruki Murakami photo
Alyson Nöel photo

“It's over. Absolutely, completely, eternally over”

Source: Evermore

Baruch Spinoza photo

“We feel and experience ourselves to be eternal.”
Sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse.

Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
Variant: We feel and know that we are eternal.
Source: Ethics (1677)

John Keats photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Elizabeth Rowe photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Edmund Burke photo

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

John Ralston Saul photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Speech to the Massachusetts State Senate http://friesian.com/ross/ca40/2002.htm#war (7 January 1914).
1910s, Speech to the Massachusetts State Senate (1914)

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“I sometimes think,' said the Eternal, 'that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

"The judgement seat", p. 316
Short Stories, Collected short stories 1

Théophile Gautier photo

“Everything passes.–
Only robust art is eternal.
The bust outlives the city.
And the simple coin
Unearthed by a peasant
Reveals the image of an emperor.”

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) French writer

Tout passe.
L'art robuste
Seul a l'éternité,
Le buste
Survit à la cité.
Et la médaille austère
Que trouve un laboureur
Sous terre
Révèle un empereur.
All passes, art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The bust outlasts the throne, —
The coin, Tiberius.
"L'Art", line 41, in Émaux et Camées (1852; Genève: Librairie Droz, 1947) pp. 131-2; Dean de la Motte and Jeannene M. Przyblyski (eds.) Making the News (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999) p. 144; Henry Austin Dobson "Ars Victrix", line 29, in The Complete Poetical Works of Austin Dobson (Whitefish, Montana: Kessenger, 2005) p. 142.

Frederick Douglass photo

“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave.”

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

Regarding John Brown, as quoted in A Lecture On John Brown http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mfd&fileName=22/22002/22002page.db&recNum=9&tempFile=./temp/~ammem_rvc6&filecode=mfd&next_filecode=mfd&prev_filecode=mfd&itemnum=2&ndocs=32

Karl Barth photo

“While it is beyond our comprehension that eternity should meet us in time, yet it is true because in Jesus Christ eternity has become time.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

The Knowledge of God and the Service of God (1939)

E.M. Forster photo
Gay Talese photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Sara Teasdale photo
George Howard Earle, Jr. photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Jean Metzinger photo
Gregory Benford photo
Henry Liddon photo

“As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). p. 366.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Salvador Dalí photo
John Ogilby photo
Báb photo

“Fear ye God that ye may not identify yourselves with aught but the truth, inasmuch as ye have been exalted in the Bayán for being recognized as the bearers of the name of Him Who is the eternal Truth.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVII, 4
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

James Allen photo
Cindy Sheehan photo

“We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now.”

Cindy Sheehan (1957) American antiwar activist

Cindy Sheehan was a featured speaker at a pro-Lynne Stewart rally held on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at San Francisco State University. Among the sponsors of the event were the National Lawyers Guild, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the International Socialist Organization, and the Campus Antiwar Network. http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/Articles/Stewartrally.htm
2005

John Flavel photo

“Here you may suppose the Father to say when driving His bargain with Christ for you. The Father speaks. "My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lay open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them." The Son responds. "Oh my Father. Such is my love to and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee. Bring them all in, that there be no after-reckonings with them. At my hands shall thou require it. I would rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs then they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt." The Father responds. "But my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatement. Son, if I spare them… I will not spare you." The Son responds. "Content Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures… I am content to take it."”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

The Works of John Flavel, Vol.1, "A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory", 42 Sermons, Sermon Number 3, "The Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Redeemer", Use 6.

Salvador Dalí photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
George William Russell photo
Carl Friedrich Gauss photo

“All the measurements in the world do not balance one theorem by which the science of eternal truths is actually advanced.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

March 14, 1824. As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 360

Aristide Maillol photo
Francis Pharcellus Church photo
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël photo

“Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end: we fancy that we have always possessed what we love, so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it.”

Bk. 8, ch. 2, as translated by Isabel Hill (1833)
Variant translation: It is certainly through love that eternity can be understood; it confuses all thoughts about time; it destroys the ideas of beginning and end; one thinks one has always been in love with the person one loves, so difficult is it to conceive that one could live without him.
As translated by Sylvia Raphael (1998)
Corinne (1807)

Conrad Aiken photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Mircea Eliade photo

“The great cosmic illusion is a hierophany…. One is devoured by Time, not because one lives in Time, but because one believes in its reality, and therefore forgets or despises eternity.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Source: Images and Symbols (1952), p. 90 - 91.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Life is but the spirit's prison,
Where its wings are furl'd,
Stretching to their flight in vain, —
Seeking that eternal home
Which is in a world to come.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1837 2) (Vol 50) Subjects for Pictures. Alexander on The Banks of the Hyphasis
The Monthly Magazine

Amir Taheri photo

“Brothers, what we do in life, echoes in eternity.”

William Nicholson (1948) British screenwriter, playwright and novelist

Gladiator (2000 film)

Don Marquis photo

“well boss
mehitabel the cat
has reappeared in her old
haunts with a
flock of kittens

archy she said to me
yesterday
the life of a female
artist is continually
hampered what in hell
have i done to deserve
all these kittens
i look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another
i am a dancer archy
and my only prayer
is to be allowed
to give my best to my art
but just as i feel
that i am succeeding
in my life work
along comes another batch
of these damned kittens
it is not archy
that i am shy on mother love
god knows i care for
the sweet little things
curse them
but am i never to be allowed
to live my own life
i have purposely avoided
matrimony in the interests
of the higher life
but i might just
as well have been a domestic
slave for all the freedom
i have gained
i hope none of them
gets run over by
an automobile
my heart would bleed
if anything happened
to them and i found it out
but it isn t fair archy
it isn t fair
these damned tom cats have all
the fun and freedom
if i was like some of these
green eyed feline vamps i know
i would simply walk out on the
bunch of them and
let them shift for themselves
but i am not that kind
archy i am full of mother love
my kindness has always
been my curse
a tender heart is the cross i bear
self sacrifice always and forever
is my motto damn them
i will make a home
for the sweet innocent
little things
unless of course providence
in his wisdom should remove
them they are living
just now in an abandoned
garbage can just behind
a made over stable in greenwich
village and if it rained
into the can before i could
get back and rescue them
i am afraid the little
dears might drown
it makes me shudder just
to think of it
of course if i were a family cat
they would probably
be drowned anyhow
sometimes i think
the kinder thing would be
for me to carry the
sweet little things
over to the river
and drop them in myself
but a mother s love archy
is so unreasonable
something always prevents me
these terrible
conflicts are always
presenting themselves
to the artist
the eternal struggle
between art and life archy
is something fierce
yes something fierce
my what a dramatic
life i have lived
one moment up the next
moment down again
but always gay archy always gay
and always the lady too
in spite of hell
well boss it will
be interesting to note
just how mehitabel
works out her present problem
a dark mystery still broods
over the manner
in which the former
family of three kittens
disappeared
one day she was talking to me
of the kittens
and the next day when i asked
her about them
she said innocently
what kittens
interrogation point
and that was all
i could ever get out
of her on the subject
we had a heavy rain
right after she spoke to me
but probably that garbage can
leaks so the kittens
have not yet
been drowned”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

mehitabel and her kittens http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/kittens/
archy and mehitabel (1927)

Frederick William Robertson photo
George Holmes Howison photo
John Muir photo

“Take a course of good water and air, and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"Mount Shasta" in Picturesque California (1888-1890) page 165; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 5
1880s

Robert E. Howard photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Brigham Young photo
Buckminster Fuller photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
Chris Hedges photo
James Joyce photo
Kate Bush photo

“Rosabel believe,
Not even eternity
Can hold Houdini!
"Rosabel, believe!"”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

Lord Dunsany photo
Leigh Hunt photo
James Thurber photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“This is eternal life; a life of everlasting love, showing itself in everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 209.

Swami Vivekananda photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.”
Sed amor erga rem aeternam et infinitam sola laetitia pascit animum, ipsaque omnis tristitiae est expers; quod valde est desiderandum totisque viribus quaerendum.

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

I, 10; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Aristide Maillol photo

“The first thing that strikes [one] in Cézanne is not apples, but balance of tones. With elements drawn from nature, what did [Cézanne] attempt? To create, to arouse powerful feeling, to awaken in the hearts of men that which is eternal in men.”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

in a writing of Maillol, quoted in 'Aristide Maillol', ed. Andrew C. Ritchie, Albright Art Gallery N Y 1945, p. 31; as quoted by Angelo Carnafa, in 'A sculpture of interior Solitude', Associated University Presse, 1999, p. 168

Thomas Hardy photo

“What of the Immanent Will and Its designs?
It works unconsciously, as heretofore,
Eternal artistries in Circumstance.”

Pt. I, forescene, Shade of the Earth & Spirit of the Years
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

Halldór Laxness photo

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast. (Original to Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

1734)
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Hermann Hesse photo
David Hume photo

“That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”

Part VII - Confirmation of this doctrine
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Kage Baker photo
James Gates Percival photo

“Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre--green sods
Are all their monument, and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles
Or the eternal pyramids.”

James Gates Percival (1795–1856) American geologis, poet, and surgeon

"The Graves of the Patriots," first published in the United States Literary Gazette, Vol. 2 (1825).

John Muir photo

“The whole wilderness in unity and interrelation is alive and familiar … the very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. … No particle is ever wasted or worn out but eternally flowing from use to use.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

attributed to a Muir "manuscript" in Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 124
Similar to statements from My First Summer in the Sierra http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/my_first_summer_in_the_sierra/, see quotes from 30 August and 2 September above.
1870s

John Donne photo
Martin Harris photo

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

Martin Harris (1783–1875) Book of Mormon witness

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830)

P. D. Ouspensky photo
Sofia Samatar photo

“Someone tell me why my road
is eternally strewn with ashes.”

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 20, “The Sound of the World” (p. 282)

Sri Aurobindo photo
John Ruysbroeck photo
Nyanaponika Thera photo
Karol Cariola photo

“Education in Chile has been modeled as a "consumer good" and this was accepted with much resignation by a broad layer of society for many years, they believed that education and health were to be treated like any other topic…. For this reason we cannot fail to recognize the intervention that the student movement made on the consciousness of thousands of Chileans who today are dissatisfied with the reality of today's education model, to whom a change of the outdated constitution makes sense, who understand the need to reform the taxation system, who no longer put up with the overexploitation of our natural resources, to benefit foreign capital, i. e. Chile awoke and once again came to believe in the possibility of building a different country. One which is more just, a country where education and health are guaranteed, a country where workers have dignified working conditions, where young people are not exploited nor ill-treated in their work-place, where women are integrated with rights and equal opportunities, a country where the environment is protected, where natural resources are exploited to improve the living condition of its people, a country were culture develops freely, where there is access to literature, a country where children don't suffer discrimination because they don't have any money, a country where a walk down your street doesn't mean constant fear of being assaulted, a country where the most disadvantaged youth don't have to resort to drugs or delinquency to give sense to their lives, a country where grandparents are not made to feel as burdens, a country where the development of knowledge becomes a task of society as a whole, where advances in science are placed at the service of the people. We are once again beginning to dream of this beautiful country …because we are not the same that we were a year ago, hope has resurfaced despite the elaborate effort of those who foster neoliberal ideology and who are trying to eternalize capitalism in a process of permanent auto-reproduction, excluding all possibility of a social revolution.”

Karol Cariola (1987) Chilean politician

Ser un joven comunista, por Karol Cariola, La Jota de Ingenieria, November 2011, 2013-10-03 http://www.jotainjenieria.cl/ser-un-joven-comunista-por-karol-cariola, Ser un joven comunista, por Karol Cariola, Oceansur.com, November 2011, 2013-10-03 http://www.oceansur.com/media/uploads/documents/files/prologo-karol.pdf,
Original: La educación en Chile ha sido modelada como un “bien de consumo”, hecho que fue aceptado por un amplio sector de la sociedad, con mucha resignación durante años, ellos creyeron que la Educación y la Salud debían ser tratados como cualquier otro tema.... Por esto no podemos dejar de reconocer el gran acierto del movimiento estudiantil al intervenir en las conciencias de miles de chilenos que hoy , ya no se conforman con la realidad del actual modelo de educación, que le hace sentido el cambio de esta añeja constitución, que entendieron necesaria una reforma tributaria, que ya no aguantan la sobre explotación de nuestros recursos naturales en beneficio de capitales extranjeros, es decir, Chile despertó y volvió a creer en la posibilidad de construir un país distinto, un país más justo, un país donde la educación y la salud estén garantizadas, un país donde los trabajadores tengan condiciones laborales dignas, donde los jóvenes no sean explotados ni mal tratados en su fuente laboral, donde las mujeres sean integradas con igualdad de derechos y oportunidades, un país donde se proteja el medio ambiente, en que los recursos naturales sean explotados para mejorar las condiciones de su pueblo, un país donde la cultura se desarrolle libremente, un país en el que haya acceso a la literatura, un país donde los niños no sufran la discriminación desde que nacen por no tener dinero, un país donde caminar por las calles no sean un temor constante de ser asaltados, un país donde los jóvenes más desposeídos no tengan que recurrir a las drogas y la delincuencia para dar sentido a sus vidas, un país donde los abuelos no se sientan un estorbo, un país donde el desarrollo del conocimiento sea una tarea de la sociedad en su conjunto, un país donde el avance de la ciencia se ponga al servicio del pueblo, ese hermoso país es el que hoy estamos volviendo a soñar, porque con emoción lo vuelvo a mencionar, Chile está cambiando, hoy no somos los mismos que hace un año atrás, las esperanzas han resurgido a pesar del esmero de aquellos que propician la ideología neoliberal y que pretenden eternizar el capitalismo en un proceso de auto reproducción permanente, excluyendo toda posibilidad de una revolución social.

Ion Antonescu photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Ray Comfort photo
George W. Bush photo
Bruce Cockburn photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo
Johann Heinrich Lambert photo