Quotes about heaven
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Jacques Prevért photo

“Our father who art in heaven
Stay there
And we will stay here on earth
Which is sometimes so pretty”

Jacques Prevért (1900–1977) French poet, screenwriter

Pater Noster

Fukuzawa Yukichi photo

“It is said that heaven does not create one man above or below another man. Any existing distinction between the wise and the stupid, between the rich and the poor, comes down to a matter of education.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Gakumon no Susume [An Encouragement of Learning] (1872–1876).

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Socrates photo
Zhang Zai photo

“To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth, to secure life and fortune for the people, to continue the lost teachings of past sages, and to establish peace for all future generations.”

Zhang Zai (1020–1077) Chinese philosopher

Complete Works of Master Zhang, "Supplements to Reflections on Things at Hand", as quoted in Wang Chunyong's Famous Chinese Sayings Quoted by Wen Jiabao, trans. Chan Sin-wai (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Co., 2009), p. 10

Temple Grandin photo
George Orwell photo

“[Man] is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

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

Thomas Paine photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today's ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.
Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God's heaven; then, however, his responsbility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence — in destitution, in prison, in sickness — his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.
But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings — they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist's vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Nobel lecture (1970)

“Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

" The Chantry Of The Cherubim http://www.bartleby.com/236/219.html" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
I wash my spirit clean;
I see old miracles afresh,
And wonders yet unseen.
I will not leave Thee till Thou give
Some word whereby my soul may live!I listened — but no voice I heard;
I looked — no likeness saw;
Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.</p

Kate Bush photo

“Out in the garden
There's half of a heaven,
And we're only bluffing.
We're not ones for busting through walls,
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.”

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

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

Johannes Kepler photo

“Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.”

Translated by Edward Rosen, Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger (1965), p. 39
Unsourced variant translation: Provide ships or sails fit for the winds of heaven, and some will brave even that great void.
Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo (1610)
Context: It is not improbable, I must point out, that there are inhabitants not only on the moon but on Jupiter too, or (as was delightfully remarked at a recent gathering of certain philosophers) that those areas are now being unveiled for the first time. But as soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking. Who would once have thought that the crossing of the wide ocean was calmer and safer than of the narrow Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea, or English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse. Therefore, for the sake of those who, as it were, will presently be on hand to attempt this voyage, let us establish the astronomy, Galileo, you of Jupiter, and me of the moon.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)
Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Mikhail Bakunin photo

“As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
Context: The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Laozi photo

“The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.”

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1, as interpreted by Ursula K. LeGuin (1998)
Context: The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.
So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.
Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Francis of Assisi photo
C. V. Raman photo

“There is no Heaven, no Swarga, no Hell, no rebirth, no reincarnation and no immortality. The only thing that is true is that a man is born, he lives and he dies. Therefore, he should live his life properly.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

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]

Alexis Karpouzos photo

“Our souls are tied across universes,
there is unbroken continuity,
you see the love is more powerful than death,
so let the winds of the heavens to dance with you
and give your smile at the other's welcome”

The film ''We are the conversation'', gathers together the most famous poems and poets from all over the world. It is a celebration of our linguistic diversity and a reminder of our commonalities and the fundamental role verbal art plays in human life around the world.
Alexis karpouzos

Alexis Karpouzos photo

“In our brief life,
so many roads,
so many miracles
and blessings and glories,
but also so many curses and denials,
grief and contempt,
continuous waves on the planetary seas
that come and go,
and they crawl us into the vast heavens,
n that quiet rhythm universe
listen to your heart beat.”

The film ''We are the conversation'', gathers together the most famous poems and poets from all over the world. It is a celebration of our linguistic diversity and a reminder of our commonalities and the fundamental role verbal art plays in human life around the world.
Alexis karpouzos

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Tom DeLonge photo

“Heaven must be just like this”

Tom DeLonge (1975) American rock musician

da I-Empire)

Robert Browning photo
William Shakespeare photo
Anne Frank photo
Jean Webster photo
Simone Weil photo
Anne Frank photo
Douglas Adams photo
Charles Bukowski photo

“animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that's why we get along”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Brandon Mull photo
Beatrix Potter photo

“I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense…”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

Journal entry (1896-11-17), from the National Trust collection.
Source: The Complete Tales

William Shakespeare photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there….”

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Variant: The principal difference between heaven and hell is the company you keep there.

William Wordsworth photo

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!”

Bk. XI, l. 108.
Source: The Prelude (1799-1805)

William Shakespeare photo
Gaston Leroux photo
Jeffrey R. Holland photo
William Shakespeare photo
Cassandra Clare photo
John Milton photo

“The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. / What matter where, if I be still the same…”

i.254-255
Paradise Lost (1667)
Variant: The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
Source: Paradise Lost: Books 1-2

Fulton J. Sheen photo
Paracelsus photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes.
This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Every one who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell.”

Essay 3, Aphorism 10
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Variant: Whoever, at any time, has undertaken to build a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell...

Walter Scott photo

“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love.”

Canto III, stanza 2.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)
Context: In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

Stephen Hawking photo
Alice Sebold photo

“Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.”

Source: The Lovely Bones

Scott Heim photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
William Shakespeare photo
Stephen King photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“Heaven has no taste."
"Now-"
"And not one single sushi restaurant."
A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Arthur Miller photo
William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare photo
Corrie ten Boom photo
Stephen King photo
Robert Browning photo

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”

"Andrea del Sarto", line 98.
Men and Women (1855)
Source: Men and Women and Other Poems

Sadhguru photo
William Shakespeare photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Mark Twain photo
Christopher Morley photo

“When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.”

Variant: When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.
Source: Parnassus on Wheels

Oscar Wilde photo
Cole Porter photo

“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now, Heaven knows,
Anything goes.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Anything Goes"; there are also variants on this line which read "But now, God knows,
Anything goes", but the most common renditions are done with "Heaven knows"
Anything Goes (1934)

Cassandra Clare photo
Friedrich Hölderlin photo

“What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.

As translated by Michael Hamburger”

Hyperion
Original: (de) Immerhin hat das den Staat zur Hölle gemacht, daß ihn der Mensch zu seinem Himmel machen wollte.

John Connolly photo
William Shakespeare photo
Virginia Woolf photo

“Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: Selected Letters

Paulo Coelho photo
Thomas à Kempis photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Recollection by Gilbert J. Greene, quoted in The Speaking Oak (1902) by Ferdinand C. Iglehart and Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln (1917) by Ervin S. Chapman
Posthumous attributions

Terry Pratchett photo
Markus Zusak photo
William Shakespeare photo
Christopher Morley photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
William Shakespeare photo
Borís Pasternak photo
William Shakespeare photo
John Keats photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Jean Paul Sartre photo