Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes - Page 2

A man who knows all goods and all truths, as many as can be known, but does not shun evils, knows nothing.

Love is the life of humanity.

If love is not married to wisdom (or if goodness is not married to truth), it cannot accomplish anything.

He who is in evil, is also in the punishment of evil.

Hell and Heaven are near man, yes, in him; and every man after death goes to that Hell or heaven in which he was, or to his spirit, during his abode in the world.

Anyone can see that intending and not acting when we can is not really intending, and loving and not doing good when we can is not really loving.

The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be.

A person's life from infancy to old age is nothing else than an advance from the world towards heaven, the last stage of which is death; the actual transition from one life to the next.

We all have spirits present with us who are feeling the way we are.

A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship.

To will and not to do when there is opportunity is in reality not to will; and to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it

We are, because God is.

Everything good or true that the angels inspire in us is God's, so God is constantly talking to us. He talks very differently, though, to one person than to another.

What is true is true, and what is false is false.

God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love

In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young.

Man is an organ of life, and God alone is life.

Every man is received in heaven who receives heaven in himself while in the world, and he is excluded who does not.

The Lord casts no one down in Hell, but the spirit casts himself hither.

If we would accept heaven's life, we need by all means to live in the world and to participate in its duties and affairs. In this way, we accept a spiritual life by means of our moral and civic life; and there is no other way a spiritual life can be formed within us, no other way our spirits can be prepared for heaven. This is because living an inner life and not an outer life at the same time is like living in a house that has no foundation, that gradually either settles or develops gaping cracks or totters until it collapses.

Men live a moral life, either from regard to the Diving Being, or from regard to the opinion of the people in the world; and when a moral life is practised out of regard to the Divine Being, it is a spiritual life. Both appear alike in their outward form; but in their inward, they are completely different. The one saves a man, but the other does not; for he that leads a moral life out of regard to the Divine Being is led by him, but he who does so from regard to the opinion of people in the world is led by himself.

The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves-that is loving.

All our longings for what is loving and true reach out into heaven. They put us in touch with angels who are feeling the same way and unite us with them.

Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.

Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.