Is heaven real? Cultures and faiths since time immemorial believe so, though their concepts of paradise are as diverse as life itself.
Lisa Miller, award-winning religion writer, delves into these ideas in her new book, Visions of Heaven: A Journey Through the Afterlife, published by TIME. It investigates the notion of heaven from the ancient world to modern accounts of near-death experiences with visits to paradise.
Here are some of our favorite quotes about heaven, inspired by the words above:
“Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.” ? Jorge Luis Borges
“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” ? Isaac Asimov
“I don't like Paradise, As they probably don't have obsessions there.” ? Alda Merini
“All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way.” ? Catherine of Siena
“I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.” ? Blaise Pascal
“Paradise does not exist, but we must nonetheless strive to be worthy of it.” ? Jules Renard
“If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.” ? Billy Joel
“[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.” ? Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” ? Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“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.” ? Pearl S. Buck
“Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading.” ? Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters
“The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.” ? W.H. Auden, A Certain World: A Commonplace Book
“The blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishments of the damned, in order that their bliss be more delightful for them.” ? Thomas Aquinas
“Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light” ? Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
"That's what Heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays." -Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven h/t to Visions of Heaven
"I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning." -Benjamin Franklin
"I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given." -Emily Dickinson, "I Never Saw a Moor" h/t to Visions of Heaven
"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." -G.K. Chesterton, The Eternal Revolution h/t to Visions of Heaven
"We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low." -Desmond Tutu h/t to Visions of Heaven
"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh h/t to Visions of Heaven
"Everyone who has ever built anywhere a 'new heaven' first found the power thereto in his own hell." -Freidrich Nietzsche, On the Geneaology of Morais h/t to Visions of Heaven
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." -Revelation 21:4 h/t to Visions of Heaven
"I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet." -Marina Abrahmovic h/t to Visions of Heaven
"To be in Hell is to drift: to be in Heaven is to steer." -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman h/t to Visions of Heaven
"They who believe and do righteous deeds- those are the companions of Paradise; they will abide therein eternally." -Quran, Al-Baqarah 2:82 h/t to Visions of Heaven
"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves- or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth." -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged h/t to Visions of Heaven
“Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground” ? Dante Alighieri
"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room, I shall be able to see." -Helen Keller h/t to Visions of Heaven
"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!" -J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings h/t to Visions of Heaven
"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." -Mark Twain h/t to Visions of Heaven
"To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.'" -C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain h/t to Visions of Heaven
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” ? Will Rogers
“They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to Middle Earth. ” ? George R.R. Martin
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?” ? Robert Browning, Men and Women and Other Poems
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