A collection of quotes on the topic of paradise, world, use, likeness.
“The best miracle is to be sent to paradise without paying a ticket.”
“I don't care If I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.”
"Duterte: Look ma, cheap shoes no socks" http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/710288/duterte-simple-lifestyle-has-served-me-well-in-govt' (August 5 2015)
“Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!”
Pt. II.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
FitzGerald's first edition (1859)
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:
The three make heaven for me; it may be thine
Is some sour place of singing cold and bare —
But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.
As translated by Richard Le Gallienne (1897)
Give me a flagon of red wine, a book of verses, a loaf of bread, and a little idleness. If with such store I might sit by thy dear side in some lonely place, I should deem myself happier than a king in his kingdom.
As translated by Justin McCarthy (1888).
The Rubaiyat (1120)
“Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew.”
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 74
Nahj al-Balagha
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
FitzGerald's first edition (1859).
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
In a 2009 interview
Quoted in "Soleimani, a General Who Became Iran Icon by Targeting US" https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/ap-ml-iran-qassem-soleimani.html. The Associated Press
“A man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.”
R.U.R. (1920)
as quoted in Khushwant Singh, The Freethinker's Prayer Book (2013), p. 35
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 73-74
huffingtonpost.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-peter-m-wallace/unlikely-saints-stan-lee_b_669290.html
“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”
As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144
“I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.”
As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed
Source: The Last Temptation of Christ
Source: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX
i.17-26
Paradise Lost (1667)
Context: And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.
“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”
As forests are cleared and species vanish, there's one other loss: a world of languages http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/why-we-are-losing-a-world-of-languages
Mythopoeia (1931)
Sahih Al-Bukhari Volume 8 Book 73 Number 34
Sunni Hadith
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Blurb on The Complete Strangers In Paradise (2004), Vol. 1
To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)
Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"
Hitherto it has grown out of the secure, non-struggling life of the aristocrat. In future it may be expected to grow out of the secure and not-so-struggling life of whatever citizens are personally able to develop it. There need be no attempt to drag culture down to the level of crude minds. That, indeed, would be something to fight tooth and nail! With economic opportunities artificially regulated, we may well let other interests follow a natural course. Inherent differences in people and in tastes will create different social-cultural classes as in the past—although the relation of these classes to the holding of material resources will be less fixed than in the capitalistic age now closing. All this, of course, is directly contrary to Belknap's rampant Stalinism—but I'm telling you I'm no bolshevik! I am for the preservation of all values worth preserving—and for the maintenance of complete cultural continuity with the Western-European mainstream. Don't fancy that the dethronement of certain purely economic concepts means an abrupt break in that stream. Rather does it mean a return to art impulses typically aristocratic (that is, disinterested, leisurely, non-ulterior) rather than bourgeois.
Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (28 October 1934), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 60-64
Non-Fiction, Letters
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/10/financial-crisis-capitalism-socialism-alternatives (2009).
In a letter to a friend, Nice 1918, as quoted in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1910s
“For a moment
The surrounding utters no sound.
Time ceases.
The Paradise of Dreams come true.”
"For A Moment", Bruce Lee's hand-written poem, from Bruce Lee Papers — as quoted in Bruce Lee: Artist of Life (2001) edited by John Little, p. 100
“No thought for the hereafter have the wise,
for on this very earth they live in paradise”
The Cherubinic Wanderer
“Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.”
Fragment No. 51; Jeder geliebte Gegenstand ist der Mittelpunkt eines Paradieses.
Variant translations:
Every beloved object is the centre of a Paradise.
As quoted by Thomas Carlyle in "Novalis" (1829)
Every beloved object is the midpoint to paradise.
Blüthenstaub (1798)
Madmonarchs biography http://www.xs4all.nl/~monarchs/madmonarchs/nadir/nadir_bio.htm
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrLQ7DpiWs "Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order"
“The fruit of the tree of knowledge, always drives man from some paradise or other.”
"The Idea of Progress" http://books.google.com/books?id=TbgYAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+fruit+of+the+tree+of+knowledge+always+drives+man+from+some+paradise+or+other%22&pg=PA5#v=onepage, Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920), reprinted in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922)
"Is There a God?" (1952)
1950s
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
In principio, dunque, era la noia, volgarmente chiamata caos. Iddio, annoiandosi della noia, creò la terra, il cielo, l'acqua, gli animali, le piante, Adamo ed Èva; i quali ultimi, annoiandosi a loro volta in paradiso, mangiarono il frutto proibito. Iddio si annoiò di loro e li cacciò dall'Eden.
La noia (Milano: Bompiani, 1960) pp. 10-11; Angus Davidson (trans.) Boredom (New York: New York Review of Books, 1999) p. 8.
“Memory is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away.”
Die Erinnerung ist das einzige Paradies, aus welchem wir nicht getrieben werden können.
Jean Paul's Geist; oder Chrestomathie http://books.google.ca/books?id=UMwMAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA6&hl=en, Vierter Theil [4th part], Weimar/Leipzig, 1816
"General Audience", in Saint Peter's Square (26 November 2014) https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20141126_udienza-generale.html.
2010s, 2014
Halfway to Paradise (1961), co-written with Gerry Goffin, first recorded by Tony Orlando, later by Billy Fury
Song lyrics, Singles
On First Principles, Bk. 4, ch. 2, par 16
On First Principles
A Short History of Decay (1949)
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: There is nothing between the paradise dreamed of and the paradise lost. There is nothing, since we always want what we have not got. We hope, and then we regret. We hope for the future, and then we turn to the past, and then we begin slowly and desperately to hope for the past! The two most violent and abiding feelings, hope and regret, both lean upon nothing. To ask, to ask, to have not! Humanity is exactly the same thing as poverty. Happiness has not the time to live; we have not really the time to profit by what we are. Happiness, that thing which never is — and which yet, for one day, is no longer!
Nobel lecture (1978)
Context: The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants. Nevertheless, it is also true that the serious writer of our time must be deeply concerned about the problems of his generation. He cannot but see that the power of religion, especially belief in revelation, is weaker today than it was in any other epoch in human history. More and more children grow up without faith in God, without belief in reward and punishment, in the immortality of the soul and even in the validity of ethics. The genuine writer cannot ignore the fact that the family is losing its spiritual foundation.
Part Troll (2004)
Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Context: A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
I Am A Dancer (1952)
Context: Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths. Then I need all the comfort that practice has stored in my memory, a tenacity of faith.
The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile. She loved the sky, the light, which the unformed little being would love some day. She loved the chilly dawn, the sultry noontime, the dreamy evening. The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world. Her arms quivered like wings. She dreamed in words of fondling. She fascinated all the passersby that looked at her. And the setting sun bathed her neck and head in a rosy reflection. She was like a great rose that opens its heart to the whole world.
"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2
1950s
Context: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Source: The Blind Assassin
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library.”
Variant: I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Source: Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time: A Novel
Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
“The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.”
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Where we are would be Paradise to me, if you would only make it so.”
As quoted in The Canine Hiker's Bible (2000) by Doug Gelbert, p. 8
Source: The Secret Life of Bees
Source: Redeeming Love
