If heaven send no supplies, The fairest blossom of the garden dies.
Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven.
It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own image. Rather does he create Him in the image of his cravings and dreams- in the image of what man wants to be. God making could be part of the process by which a society realizes its aspirations: it first embodies them in the conception of a particular God, and then proceeds to imitate that God. The confidence requisite for attempting the unprecedented is most effectively generated by the fiction that in realizing the new we are imitating rather than originating. Our preoccupation with heaven can be part of an effort to find precedents for the unprecedented.
Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Over her hung a canopy of state, Not of rich tissue, nor of spangled gold, But of a substance, though not animate, Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould, That only eyes of spirits might behold.
O beautiful rainbow;--all woven of light! There's not in thy tissue one shadow of night; Heaven surely is open when thou dost appear. And, bending thee above, the angels draw near, And sing,--"The rainbow! the rainbow! The smile of God is here."
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven; We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings.
What skilful limner e'er would choose To paint the rainbow's varying hues, Unless to mortal it were given To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?
I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles river when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
For take thy ballaunce if thou be so wise, And weigh the winds that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow.
Dear to us are those who love us. . . but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit . . .
If one of us could ascend to the heavenly realm and for a few hours accompany the divine on His daily rounds, he would see below millions of his fellow humans busily hurling themselves into the passions, sports, and action of those around him. But if our observer had the power and omniscience of the Lord, he would also feel and sense, pulsing through and vibrating from every one of us here below, a desperate and unending plea, "Notice me! I want to be known admired, and loved by the whole world!" And it is this, this glorious weakness, this dependence of ours on each other, that makes some of us usually heroes and fools at the same time.
Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other.
All religions must be tolerated, for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
Life is a tightrope with God at the end. If we walk with our eyes down, looking at what is happening right now in our lives, we are likely to waver and fall. However, if we focus at the end of the rope, where God and Heaven await us, we can see past all of the petty troubles this present life and walk more steadily. We may sometimes still stumble, but if we get back up and train our eyes on God once again, He will guide us to the end.
I hope with all my heart there will be painting in heaven.
Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
It is not the fact that a person has riches that keeps them from heaven, but the fact that riches have them.
If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there'd be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.
You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.
We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
I see heaven's glories shine and faith shines equal...
If thou dost slander her and torture me, Never pray more; abandon all remorse; On horror's head horrors accumulate; Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed; For nothing canst thou to damnation add Greater than that.