dabd8ec
|
You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching
|
|
dance
heaven
life
love
inspirational
hurt
sing
|
William W. Purkey |
fca8b81
|
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!
|
|
heaven
christianity
inspirational
narnia
|
C.S. Lewis |
d4b70df
|
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
|
|
dogs
man
heaven
religion
inspirational
animals
|
Mark Twain |
2b9246b
|
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?' 26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.' 27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
|
|
heaven
god
humor
|
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett |
f9619c0
|
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
|
|
heaven
nature
heavenly
|
Henry David Thoreau |
d5cfd52
|
Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish--a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow--to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.
|
|
heaven
life
|
Hunter S. Thompson |
2e69861
|
The first men to be created and formed were called the Sorcerer of Fatal Laughter, the Sorcerer of Night, Unkempt, and the Black Sorcerer ... They were endowed with intelligence, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all that is around them, and they contemplated in turn the arc of heaven and the round face of the earth ... [Then the Creator said]: 'They know all ... what shall we do with them now? Let their sight reach only to that which is near; let them see only a little of the face of the earth!... Are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods?
|
|
earth
heaven
intelligence
sight
creation-myth
gods
knowledge
|
Anonymous |
bc6b4d4
|
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.
|
|
heaven
life
expectation
hell
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
aad97d2
|
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp
|
|
heaven
inspirational
aspiration
|
Robert Browning |
389356e
|
animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that's why we get along
|
|
heaven
hell
|
Charles Bukowski |
be26123
|
We may speak about a place where there are no tears, no death, no fear, no night; but those are just the benefits of heaven. The beauty of heaven is seeing God.
|
|
heaven
christianity
christian-living
christian-life
|
Max Lucado |
9eb9601
|
I believe that everything that you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that's bad, I'm going to suffer from it. But in my mind, I believe what I'm doing is right. So I feel like I'm going to heaven
|
|
heaven
inspirational
|
Tupac Shakur |
73ed2b5
|
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
|
|
heaven
love
unloving
vulnerability-selfishness
pets
hell
|
C.S. Lewis |
abd57bd
|
Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but it's jus' in their head.
|
|
heaven
land
|
John Steinbeck |
92f6412
|
Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more then Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.
|
|
heaven
good
hell
|
Terry Pratchett |
bd889b7
|
Come back to me, Tessa. Henry said that perhaps, since you had touched the soul of an angel, that you dream of Heaven now, of fields of angels and flowers of fire. Perhaps you are happy in those dreams. But I ask this out of pure selfishness. Come back to me. For I cannot bear to lose all my heart.
|
|
heaven
page-479
clockwork-princess
tessa-gray
will-herondale
|
Cassandra Clare |
aca7297
|
There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't.
|
|
good-and-evil
prejudice
heaven
idealism
jesus
religion
god
life-lessons
good-and-bad
prejudices
criminals
|
Neil Gaiman |
2be5afd
|
Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.
|
|
heaven
god
hell
|
John Green |
ea4a7f9
|
When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires
|
|
heaven
humor
firefighting
kate-fitzgerald
father
hell
|
Jodi Picoult |
30f3dfb
|
And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that (Hell) contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.
|
|
loneliness
heaven
joy
hell
|
C.S. Lewis |
b042240
|
I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ...' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ...
|
|
heaven
|
David Mitchell |
b945d4e
|
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
|
|
heaven
hope
|
C.S. Lewis |
c999d52
|
After all, is not a real Hell better than a manufactured Heaven?
|
|
heaven
love
hell
|
E.M. Forster |
a4ee83d
|
I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog.
|
|
heaven
love
emeth
further-up-and-further-in
tash
|
C.S. Lewis |
5774deb
|
He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.
|
|
heaven
freedom
|
Philip Pullman |
6a75b18
|
The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on--only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.
|
|
heaven
death
life
obituary
meaning-of-life
eternal-life
atheism
despair
hell
|
Christopher Hitchens |
acecdcc
|
Our heaven is their hell, said God. I like a balanced universe.
|
|
heaven
god
hell
|
Margaret Atwood |
399c2af
|
If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.
|
|
heaven
life
waking-up
dreaming
|
Ian McEwan |
fc375b4
|
As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting.
|
|
war
heaven
religion
military
tyranny
|
Tom Robbins |
a309790
|
Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.
|
|
solitude
heaven
reading
|
Jean Rhys |
69fff8c
|
Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.
|
|
heaven
spirituality
hell
|
Rob Bell |
c383efa
|
LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
|
|
marriage
heaven
self-determination
independence
freedom
empowerment
happiness
matrimony
husbands
singles
|
William Shakespeare |
9433157
|
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world.
|
|
stars
heaven
good
world
spirit
love
jewel
sea
king
|
Thomas Traherne |
d3cf71a
|
"Why does that kid think so highly of himself?" "Kids that think they're so smart.They're everywhere! Destroy is self-esteem!" "Yes...I really do think highly of myself.People like me should get a taste of the ups and downs of life! Sorry I'm so envious.I will reflect upon this. Please don't be angry. "Ah..um.." "There, I said it now. Are you satisfied?" ........ "Bye bye!" -random people and Hiro-chan "
|
|
heaven
humor
basket
chan
envious
fruit
him
hiro
manga
beat
|
Natsuki Takaya |
71432da
|
My days I devote to reading and experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy. There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.
|
|
stars
heaven
inspiration
hope
|
H.G. Wells |
d9b5f31
|
How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminals and those who seek to bring them to justice. It's no wonder the Zodiac Killer flirted so relentlessly with the police. Or that Jack the Ripper courted and baited detectives with his - or her - coy letters. We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired.
|
|
heaven
serial-killers
damned
desire
hell
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
e8d31c8
|
The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick.
|
|
heaven
wizard-of-oz
holy-spirit
kansas
|
Max Lucado |
e2357a1
|
Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same.
|
|
heaven
light
god
|
Colum McCann |
b996fcd
|
With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. (105)
|
|
myth
heaven
religion
moon
perspective
|
Joseph Campbell |
5154c87
|
"When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?" He replied: "Because no one admired me."
|
|
suicide
heaven
death
|
Stephen Crane |
d742f36
|
Now we come to forgiveness. Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.
|
|
heaven
hell
|
Margaret Atwood |
a4adb4e
|
Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine. Believe in the after, by all means, but not the life. Believe in God, the soul, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of views. If the answers are in the back of the book I can wait, but what a drag. Better to struggle on knowing that failure is final.
|
|
heaven
god
failure
|
Tom Stoppard |
b1a9f06
|
When heaven joins the battle against you, who could stand?
|
|
heaven
stand
|
Stephen R. Lawhead |
d8f9714
|
What hell condemned, let heaven now heal.
|
|
heaven
faith
inspiration
inspirational-quotes
spirituality
hope
positive-motivation
healing
recovery
hell
|
Aberjhani |
c82193b
|
Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.
|
|
heaven
|
Anne Lamott |
656a7c2
|
[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.
|
|
heaven
heads
logic
hearts
|
Charles Dickens |
c912b40
|
Everything smaller than Heaven bores us because only Heaven is bigger than our hearts.
|
|
heaven
christianity
spirituality
god
philosophy
inspirational
jesus-shock
catholicism
theology
hearts
|
Peter Kreeft |
0b1f52e
|
"Max." Fang let go of my hand. "Right now, it's really all about--us." He swooped down to the right in a big semicircle, ending facing me. Slowly we climbed upward, until we were almost vertical, flying straight up to the sun. While carefully synchronizing our wings--they almost touched--Fang leaned in, gently put one hand behind my neck, and kissed me. It was just about as close to heaven as I'll ever get, I guess. I closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of flying and kissing and being with the one person in the world I completely, utterly trusted. When we finally broke apart, we looked down at the others, who were way far below us now. Angel was shading her eyes, looking up at us with a big smile. She was sitting on a dolphin's back, and I hoped soon someone would explain to the dolphin that he shouldn't let Angel take advantage of his good nature. Still looking up at us, Angel gave us a big thumbs-up. "She approves," Fang said with a hint of amusement. "Jeez," I wondered aloud. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
|
|
kissing
kiss
heaven
trust
friendship
happiness
love
i-approve-too
shipping
dolphin
flying
couple
sun
smile
wings
otp
|
James Patterson |
445910b
|
You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly... But -- you say that dreams have no power here? Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar... Ask yourselves, all of you... What power would hell have if those imprisoned were not able to dream of heaven?
|
|
heaven
hell
|
Neil Gaiman |
2967688
|
Abundance isn't God's provision for me to live in luxury. It's his provision for me to help others live. God entrusts me with his money not to build my kingdom on earth, but to build his kingdom in heaven.
|
|
money
poverty
wealth
heaven
christianity
god
provision
stewardship
sharing
riches
luxury
help
kingdom
|
Randy Alcorn |
646ffd8
|
I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.
|
|
heaven
home
|
Pat Conroy |
a0744b7
|
Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now.
|
|
enlightenment
heaven
kindness
meaning
living-outside-yourself
fulfillment
salvation
purpose
|
Jack Kerouac |
aa762ff
|
You will be at your best forever, Even now you have good moments. Occasional glimpses of your heavenly self. When you change your baby's diaper, forgive your boss's temper, tolerate your spouse's moodiness, you display traces of saintliness.
|
|
heaven
religion
god
love
lucado
forgiveness
|
Max Lucado |
e1961cb
|
You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.
|
|
heaven
hell
|
Margaret Atwood |
6c71d67
|
They say that in the second before our death, each of us understands the real reason for our existence, and out of that moment, heaven or hell is born.
|
|
heaven
life
hell
|
Paulo Coelho |
9294de2
|
To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be misplaced?
|
|
heaven
fear
death
transformation
|
Anne Brontë |
39c80fd
|
Surely you've been sent from the heavens to teach us mortals what beauty is.
|
|
heaven
mortals
|
Sidney Sheldon |
b573610
|
After Hatuey, a fifteenth-century Indian insurrectionist, had been fixed to the stake, his Spanish captors extended him the choice of converting to Christianity and ascending to Heaven of going unrepentantly to Hell. Gathering that his executioners expected to go to heaven, Hatuey chose the other
|
|
heaven
expected
hatuey
indian
hell
|
Kathy Acker |
8718c3b
|
Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked.
|
|
heaven
christianity
jesus
spirituality
philosophy
meeting-jesus
jesus-shock
shock
jesus-christ
theology
christ
hell
|
peter kreeft |
de59ecb
|
"Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio saying, "Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell." And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella."
|
|
heaven
life
miracles
|
Sarah Vowell |
1ebf7a0
|
You've thrown down the gauntlet. You've brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But... If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist... then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
|
|
murder
heaven
living
death
life
wrath
master
puppet
damned
kill
dying
hell
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
b76e170
|
Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.
|
|
heaven
eternity
|
George Bernard Shaw |
92ffdbe
|
"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings" --
|
|
heaven
jrr-tolkien
lord-of-the-rings
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
b3b8348
|
"A couple of months ago I had a dream, which I remember with the utmost clarity. (I don't usually remember my dreams.) I dreamed I had died and gone to Heaven. I looked about and knew where I was-green fields, fleecy clouds, perfumed air, and the distant, ravishing sound of the heavenly choir. And there was the recording angel smiling broadly at me in greeting. I said, in wonder, "Is this Heaven?" The recording angel said, "It is." I said (and on waking and remembering, I was proud of my integrity), "But there must be a mistake. I don't belong here. I'm an atheist." "No mistake," said the recording angel. "But as an atheist how can I qualify?" The recording angel said sternly, "We decide who qualifies. Not you." "I see," I said. I looked about, pondered for a moment, then turned to the recording angel and asked, "Is there a typewriter here that I can use?" The significance of the dream was clear to me. I felt Heaven to be the act of writing, and I have been in Heaven for over half a century and I have always known this."
|
|
heaven
writing
|
Isaac Asimov |
d716b0d
|
The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.
|
|
present
heaven
present-moment
forever
existentialism
paradise
|
Franz Kafka |
209cfd8
|
C.S. Lewis in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed by it--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.
|
|
time
heaven
|
Sheldon Vanauken |
e03c72b
|
Do we behave out of fear of punishment, or out of the demands of our heart? For me, it is the latter, as I would hope is true for all adults, thought I know from bitter experience that such is not often the case. To act in a manner designed to catapult you into heaven would seem transparent to a god, any god,for if ones heart is not in allignment with the creator of that heaven, then... what is the point?
|
|
heaven
morality
religion
god
ghost-king
r-a-salvatore
|
R.A. Salvatore |
9df04bb
|
With every year that I grow older, I also draw closer to (my loved ones) to the day when we will once again be together. So I march through the deepening shadows, serene and unafraid, because I know that at the end of my journey they will be waiting for me.
|
|
heaven
hope
|
Tess Gerritsen |
3b4246c
|
So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.
|
|
heaven
christianity
death
bible
hell
|
Marcus J. Borg |
5fb6888
|
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
|
|
heaven
faith
spirituality
bible
hope
bible-verse
salvation
saved
christian
hell
|
Anonymous |
66e5c18
|
"I don't reckon it's allowed, going round setting fire to people," said Adam. "Otherwise people'd be doin' it all the time." "It's all right if you're religious," said Brian reassuringly. "And it stops the witches from goin' to Hell, so I expect they'd be quite grateful if they understood it properly."
|
|
heaven
humour
witches
hell
|
Terry Pratchett |
99a777d
|
What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child
|
|
rape
murder
heaven
family
pergatory
personal-growth
|
Alice Sebold |
b669de2
|
When weeds go to heaven, I suppose they will be flowers.
|
|
heaven
lm-montgomery
the-story-girl
weeds
|
L.M. Montgomery |
d736c01
|
He gazed up at the blue sky and knew that heaven--at least in this life--was neither a time nor a place to be grasped and made into a possession. It came in fleeting moments and then went away again to leave one nostalgic and yearning and on the verge of tears. Very much on the verge of tears. And very frightened.
|
|
heaven
life-and-living
love
fleeting
yearn
yearning
nostalgic
sky
fright
tears
|
Mary Balogh |
64c209a
|
Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation
|
|
heaven
|
George Bernard Shaw |
f0c72a7
|
Then she opened her eyes, Veronika did not think 'this must be heaven'. Heaven would never use a fluorescent tube to light a room, and the pain - which started a fraction of a second later - was typical of the Earth. Ah, that Earth pain - unique, unmistakable.
|
|
pain
heaven
|
Paulo Coelho |
b883d88
|
The most tragic strain in human existence lies in the fact that the pleasure which we find in the things of this life, however good that pleasure may be in itself, is always taken away from us. The things for which men strive hardly ever turn out to be as satisfying as they expected, and in the rare cases in which they do, sooner or later they are snatched away.... For the Christians, all those partial, broken and fleeting perfections which he glimpses in the world around him, which wither in his grasp and he snatches away from him even while the wither, are found again, perfect, complete and lasting in the absolute beauty of God.
|
|
heaven
god
inspirational
|
Randy Alcorn |
82c2be0
|
I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.
|
|
heaven
faith
|
G.K. Chesterton |
0b49c6f
|
"Heaven, envious of our joys, is waxen pale; And when we whisper, then the stars fall down
|
|
stars
heaven
love
whisper
|
Marlowe Christopher |
f9ac939
|
It isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am... Pause to mop up. Better now. Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.
|
|
marriage
heaven
|
Dodie Smith |
2d1da7d
|
My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.
|
|
heaven
religion
love
|
Charlotte Brontë |
1a99e2a
|
When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and whether they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. It's that green stripe you get around the sole of your shoes when you mow the lawn. Life in the age to come. Earthy.
|
|
heaven
gardening
|
Rob Bell |
50ff67e
|
She had known the kind of love that was worth risking everything for, the kind of love that was as rare as a glimpse of heaven.
|
|
heaven
risk
faith
hope
life
love
oppurtunity
choices-and-consequences
|
Nicholas Sparks |
888171d
|
Except heaven is a hope , and eden is a memory .
|
|
heaven
hope
memory
|
Craig Thompson |
73363dc
|
I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.
|
|
heaven
migrants
land
|
John Steinbeck |
e85ec0e
|
For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a wold where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.
|
|
heaven
death
inspirational
|
Randy Alcorn |
dd3546f
|
That infinite and indescribable good which is there above races as swiftly to love as a ray of light to a bright body. It gives of itself according to the ardor it finds, so that as charity spreads farther the eternal good increases upon it, and the more souls there are who love, up there, the more there are to love well, and the more love they reflect to each other, as in a mirror.
|
|
heaven
love
|
Dante Alighieri |
a3df49d
|
They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment.
|
|
true
heaven
fun
funny
motivational
humor
life
inspirational
hell
|
chuck palahniuk |
fe1f9f7
|
You can grieve for me the week before I die, if I'm scared and hurting, but when I gasp that last fleeting breath and my immortal soul flees to heaven, I'm going to be jumping over fire hydrants down the golden streets, and my biggest concern, if I have any, will be my wife back here grieving. When I die, I will be identified with Christ's exaltation. But right now, I'm identified with His affliction.
|
|
heaven
gospel
|
R.C. Sproul |
eba8d44
|
Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven
|
|
heaven
leo-tolstoy
peace
kingdom
|
Leo Tolstoy |
f6afccf
|
Heaven and Earth are meeting in a storm that, when it's over, will leave the air purer and the leaves fertile, but before that happens, houses will be destroyed, centuries- old trees will topple, paradises will be flooded.
|
|
earth
heaven
new
|
Paulo Coelho |
9fdd8f2
|
How do you let go of anger? How do you release a fury you've been standing on for so long, you would stumble were it yanked away?
|
|
moving-on
heaven
letting-go
faith
inspirational-quotes
love
|
Mitch Albom |
469ffb5
|
Liz: What's it like in hell? Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down -- all same, at end. Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell? Ketut: Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss. Liz: You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell -- same destinations -- are the same thing anyway? Ketut: Same-same. Same in end, so better be happy on journey.
|
|
heaven
sad
hell
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
26b7d12
|
A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer: 'I promise thee, this day thou shalt be With Me in Paradise' (Luke 23:43) It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.
|
|
heaven
jesus
penitent-thief
the-cross
salvation
repentance
paradise
christ
forgiveness
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
fc54f8e
|
Thus in this heaven he took his delight And smothered her with kisses upon kisses Till gradually he came to know where bliss is.
|
|
heaven
kisses
|
Geoffrey Chaucer |
14e0353
|
Dead and still in the world was worse than dead and in the ground. Dead in the ground at least gave you the hope of heaven.
|
|
heaven
inspirational
|
Ron Rash |
2211229
|
Heaven must be very beautiful, of course, the Bible says so -- but, Anne, it won't be what I've been used to.
|
|
heaven
l-m-montgomery
|
L.M. Montgomery |
e4a92ff
|
"...And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than the one before it Davy," assured Anne."
|
|
heaven
beauty
l-m-montgomery
|
L.M. Montgomery |
33325e0
|
The point is: what happens in heaven?' 'Unknowable wonderfulness?' 'Nonsense. The answer is nothing. Nothing can happen because if something happens, in fact if something can happen, then it doesn't represent eternity. Our lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change.' 'If you disable change, if you effectively stop time, if you prevent the possibility of the alteration of an individual's circumstances - and that must include at least the possibility that they alter for the worse - then you don't have life after death; you just have death.
|
|
heaven
religion
look-to-windward
iain-m-banks
|
Iain M. Banks |
49bef17
|
"...Do you think there's somewhere else, some other place to go after this one?" Mandy blurted out. "You mean when you die, where will you end up?" Alecto asked her. "...I wouldn't know... back to whatever void there is, I suppose." "I've thought about it... every living thing dies alone, it'll be lonely after death," Mandy sighed sadly. "That freaks me out, does it scare you?" "I don't want to be alone," Alecto replied wearily. "We won't be, though. We'll be dead, so we'll just be darkness, not much else, just memories, nostalgia and darkness." "I don't want to be any of that either though," Mandy exclaimed, bursting into tears and crying, keeping her eyes to the floor, her voice shaky as she spoke to him. "When we die, we'll still be nothing, the world will still be nothing, everything'll just be nothing!" "You're real though, at least that's something," Alecto pointed out, holding his hand out in front of her. Smiling miserably, Mandy took his hand in her own and sat there beside him quietly."
|
|
time
grief
heaven
depression
death
imagination
sadness
truth
frightened
disturbing
grim
spooky
nirvana
funeral
purgatory
void
misery
scary
kill
dead
lost
dying
nostalgia
|
Rebecca McNutt |
622e1c4
|
In reality, the damned are in the same place as the saved--in reality! But they hate it; it is their Hell. The saved love it, and it is their Heaven. It is like two people sitting side by side at an opera or a rock concert: the very thing that is Heaven to one is Hell to the other. Dostoyevski says, 'We are all in paradise, but we won't see it'...Hell is not literally the 'wrath of God.' The love of God is an objective fact; the 'wrath of God' is a human projection of our own wrath upon God, as the Lady Julian saw--a disastrous misinterpretation of God's love as wrath. God really says to all His creatures, 'I know you and I love you' but they hear Him saying, 'I never knew you; depart from me.' It is like angry children misinterpreting their loving parents' affectionate advances as threats. They project their own hate onto their parents' love and experience love as an enemy--which it is: an enemy to their egotistic defenses against joy... Since God is love, since love is the essence of the divine life, the consequence of loss of this life is loss of love...Though the damned do not love God, God loves them, and this is their torture. The very fires of Hell are made of the love of God! Love received by one who only wants to hate and fight thwarts his deepest want and is therefore torture. If God could stop loving the damned, Hell would cease to be pure torture. If the sun could stop shining, lovers of the dark would no longer be tortured by it. But the sun could sooner cease to shine than God cease to be God...The lovelessness of the damned blinds them to the light of glory in which they stand, the glory of God's fire. God is in the fire that to them is Hell. God is in Hell ('If I make my bed in Hell, Thou art there' [Ps 139:8]) but the damned do not know Him.
|
|
heaven
divine-love
damnation
wrath-of-god
eternal-punishment
hell
|
Peter Kreeft |
5ea173a
|
Alecto, do you think we have fallen from heaven, or do you think we are falling towards it?
|
|
heaven
towards
from
falling
hell
|
Rebecca McNutt |
689a2bd
|
God does not exist, as neither does our hereafter, that second bogey being as easily disposed of as the first. Indeed, imagine yourself just dead--and suddenly wide awake in Paradise where, wreathed in smiles, your dear dead welcome you. Now tell me, please, what guarantee do you possess that those beloved ghosts are genuine; that it is really your dear dead mother and not some petty demon mystifying you, masked as your mother and impersonating her with consummate art and naturalness? There is the rub, there is the horror; the more so as the acting will go on and on, endlessly; never, never, never, never, never will your soul in that other world be quite sure that the sweet gentle spirits crowding about it are not fiends in disguise, and forever, and forever, and forever shall your soul remain in doubt, expecting every moment some awful change, some diabolical sneer to disfigure the dear face bending over you.
|
|
heaven
god
atheism
|
Vladimir Nabokov |
980c98b
|
God doesn't make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God's provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously.
|
|
money
s
wealth
heaven
help
kingdom
|
Randy Alcorn |
298e98a
|
"If you're a child of God, you do not just "go around once" on Earth. You don't get just one earthly life. You get another-one far better and without end. You'll inhabit the New Earth! You'll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth."
|
|
new-earth
heaven
god
life
|
Randy Alcorn |
c9c38f3
|
...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.
|
|
heaven
mistakes-man-makes
folly
gifts
|
James Lee Burke |
3fe387a
|
She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then? She hoped so, although he certainly seemed to be taking his time. Perhaps they could get married in heaven, if he left it too late. That would certainly be cheaper.
|
|
ramotswe
marriage
heaven
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
cf99bdf
|
"...All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?" "I am myself. My body will not decay and die-" "A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life." "I do not pay it! I can die and in that moment live again! I cannot be killed; I am immortal. I alone am myself forever!" "Who are you, then?" "The Immortal One." "Say your name." "The King." "Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!" "You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist." "You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw your world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness."
|
|
heaven
life
earthsea
the-farthest-shore
self
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
c4a3200
|
"There Peter was, looking straight into the very eyes of God, walking the Sea of Galilee and then all of the sudden up to his neck in water. Some would argue he lacked the true believing, I say he had enough faith to go it a ways, and when he couldn't go farther Christ fetched him up. What am I saying? I'm saying that the walk to God ain't easy for the best of us. Now some would say, Preacher, if Peter had misdoubts there in the very glory of the Lord, what of us left here that ain't seen the dead raised nor the leper folk healed. All we seen is hard trial and sorrows. I'd not deny it.
|
|
heaven
sorrow
hope
peter
walk-on-water
seek
|
Ron Rash |
82b1d40
|
And why had those prayers been focused heavenward? Well, it kind of made sense, didn't it? Even when there were no more options for the body, the heart's wishes find a way out, and as with all warmth, love rises. Besides, the will to fly was in the nature of the soul, so its home had to be up above.
|
|
heaven
prayer
|
J.R. Ward |
cc3b5ea
|
Heaven . . . is the same feeling. . . . No fear. No dark. When you know you are loved . . . that's the light.
|
|
heaven
light
fear
love
inspirational
|
Mitch Albom |
f93063f
|
There was a heaven beyond anything he knew where there was no jet fuel, no jumping, no burning towers... but he wasn't looking beyond yet. He was still looking back.
|
|
heaven
death
life
september-11th
skyscrapers
september-11-attacks
terrorism
new-york-city
new-york
|
Rebecca McNutt |
c8ca9e1
|
"There was no one she wanted to see more. There was no one she wanted to see less. "Why?" she whispered. "Why are you here?" "The winds blew," he said."
|
|
marriage
heaven
death
|
Mitch Albom |
fde45fa
|
They teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you.
|
|
love-story
heaven
hope
inspirational
|
Mitch Albom |
cc85e7a
|
SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. The stream was singing aloud, and I heard him singing with it until he dropped away over the edge.
|
|
heaven
god
paradise
|
Leif Enger |
507b6af
|
The vision people hold of the world to come is but a reflection, with predictable wishful distortions, of the world in which they live.
|
|
heaven
religion
wishful-thinking
|
James Baldwin |
dd291af
|
We have never understood how birds manage to fly, Nor who the genius is who makes up dreams, Now how heaven and earth can appear in a poem.
|
|
earth
heaven
dreams
genius
|
Robert Bly |
3f69d5b
|
If Miss Watson had told Huck what the Bible says about living in a resurrected body and being with people we love on a resurrected Earth with gardens and rivers and mountains and untold adventures--now that would have gotten his attention.
|
|
heaven
christianity
|
Randy Alcorn |
6b97751
|
...I, like Borges, think of heaven as something very like a library
|
|
library
heaven
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
739c692
|
There was a super-8 steel town somewhere, where all the forgotten things in the cruel world ended up eventually, Mandy was sure of it... this place, she decided, was called Smog City.
|
|
grief
heaven
death
kodak
kodachrome
super-8
concept
smog
steel
canada
forgotten
film
cruel
city
nostalgia
|
Rebecca McNutt |
3d6e51a
|
I have got acquainted with Lofty John. Ilse is a great friend of his and often goes there to watch him working in his carpenter shop. He says he has made enough ladders to get to heaven without the priest but that is just his joke.
|
|
heaven
stairway-to-heaven
|
L.M. Montgomery |
df47493
|
"When I came out into the outside room again, I saw her shoe still lying there, where it had come off in the course of our brief wrestle. It looked so pathetic there by itself without an owner, it looked so lonely, it looked so empty. Something made me pick it up arid take it in to her. Like when someone's going away, you help them on with their coat, or their jackboots, or whatever it is they need for going away. I didn't try to put it back on her, I just set it down there beside her close at hand. You're going to need this, I said to her in my mind. You're starting on a long walk. You're going to keep walking from now on, looking for your home. I stopped and wondered for a minute if that was what happened to all of us when we crossed over. Just keep walking, keep on walking, with no ahead and no in-back-of; tramps, vagrants in eternity. With our last hope and horizon - death - already taken away.
|
|
heaven
death
after-death
after-life
afterlife
limbo
twentieth-century
dying
|
Cornell Woolrich |
d2511bd
|
As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No ideal will remain long enough to be realized, or even partly realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.
|
|
progress
heaven
idealism
|
G.K. Chesterton |
66f0521
|
Montrose tasted the coffee. No bitterness, a blend of several beans--some of which had been grown precisely the same way for over a thousand years--and just the right temperature. If pressed, he could name the chemical makeup of the coffee and the reaction of the human body to the brew. Yet there was still an almost mystical sense of well-being that few things imparted just by smell, taste, and warmth, and coffee was one.
|
|
heaven
glorious-beverage
perfect-drink
|
Sherwood Smith |
6496f93
|
Because of Jesus' supposed predestination, God would have had to choose the people who would kill and betray his son, choose the method by which he would be killed (crucifixion), and the time at which the event would occur. Those guilty of killing Jesus would therefore be simply carrying out God's wishes without the free will to have chosen a path for themselves.
|
|
heaven
jesus
free-will
judas
romans
guilty
hell
|
David G. McAfee |
9a44284
|
"Lord Foulgrin: "You must not let him see Charis as a place of learning, exploration, duties, travel, companionship, banquets, celebrations, and productive work. A low view of heaven is our ace in the hole." (conspiring to bring Fletcher down after salvation)"
|
|
heaven
inspiration
truth
|
Randy Alcorn |
c4af3c8
|
It's never hard to act ordinary if you feel ordinary.
|
|
heaven
life
ordinary
|
Mitch Albom |
47f7bf6
|
"He did not seek to efface pain in forgetfulness, he sought to elevate it and to dignify it with hope. He would say, "Be careful how you turn to the dead. Don't think of the rotting. Hold your gaze and you will see the living light of your dearly loved departed up above in heaven."
|
|
heaven
|
Victor Hugo |
a2c2f3d
|
"One man, an investment banker from Cantor Fitzgerald, took her to see the viewing deck like a good Samaritan since he felt sorry for her, and... and it was like flying, she could see the entire city, she could see the top of the clouds and the ocean, the pink and purple of the late sunset, and he told her, "it's the closest we can ever get to heaven! These buildings connect everyone together like a big community!" "If this is the closest place to heaven, are you an angel investor?" she'd asked curiously."
|
|
heaven
investor
september-11th
twin-towers-angel-investor
world-trade-center
september-11-attacks
cute
|
Rebecca McNutt |
6b9c2b8
|
Life is not the end, and death is just the beginning...
|
|
heaven
death
life
grim-reaper
dead
die
dying
hell
|
Rebecca McNutt |
27b83fc
|
According to your holy book, every single Buddhist, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, follower of various minor traditions or sects, those who do not affiliate themselves with a religious tradition and the approximately 2.74 billion humans who have never had the 'privilege' of hearing the word of your Messiah will be sentenced to eternal damnation in a lake of fire--regardless of moral standings or positive worldly accomplishments. If this sounds like a fair proposition to you, then I bite my tongue--but I honestly believe that the majority of Christians do not agree with these doctrinal assertions, and instead categorize themselves as 'Christians' out of cultural familiarity or perhaps out of complete ignorance in regards to the topic.
|
|
worship
heaven
joshua-project
only-way-through-jesus
christian
jew
hell
|
David G. McAfee |
21ade40
|
Are you an angel or a devil, sir? I need to know. Are you taking me up or down?
|
|
heaven
down
up
devil
hell
|
Eoin Colfer |
ce545b0
|
How long have i been dead? A minute. An hour. A thousand years
|
|
heaven
people
|
Mitch Albom |
34bdb27
|
"The strength of the familiar electromagnetic force between two electrons, for example, is expressed in physics in terms of a constant known as the fine structure constant. The value of this constant, almost exactly 1/137, has puzzled many generations of physicists. A joke made about the famous English physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984), one of the founders of quantum mechanics, says that upon arrival to heaven he was allowed to ask God one question. His question was: "Why 1/137?"
|
|
heaven
history-of-science
quantum-mechanics
physics
|
Mario Livio |
ed42f4c
|
They're fucking crosses. Just stick them in the ground. If there's a heaven they're already there. If not... it doesn't matter if the crosses are nice or not.
|
|
heaven
|
Robert Ferrigno |