Great Throughts Treasury

"We are here because embedded in our human nature is the secret code for heaven’s self-realization. Heaven is certainly omnipresent, may even be omniscient, but is most likely not omnipotent. It needs our active participation to realize its own truth... Since we help heaven to realize itself through our self-discovery, and self-understanding in day-to-day living, the ultimate meaning of life is found in our ordinary, human existence." - Tu Weiming

"Wisdom sits alone, topmost in heaven: she is its light, its God; and in the heart of man she sits as high, though groveling minds forget her oftentimes, seeing but this world’s idols." - Nathaniel Parker Willis

"As much of heaven is visible as we have eyes to see." - William Winter

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy." - William Wordsworth

"Humble love, and not proud science, keeps the door of heaven." -

"You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her." - Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

"The mind of the superior man is like Heaven. When it is resentful or angry, it thunders forth its indignation. But once having loosed its feelings, it is like a sunny day with a clear sky... Such is the beauty of true manliness." - Yoshida Shoin Zenshu

"Is Heaven not, after all, the Now and Here, the common things of life are all so dear." - Alice Allen, fully Alice Olive Allen Brant

"The future is like heaven--everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now." - James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin

"Heaven is not a remote, transcendental and unattainable sphere; it is a part of the inmost depths of our spiritual life." - Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev

"Gratitude is heaven itself." - William Blake

"A man’s heaven exists for him not outside of himself. If heaven is in him, then will he be in heaven, wherever he may be. Heaven is throughout the whole world and outside of it; it is nothing but a manifestation of the Eternal One." -

"If justice prevails, good faith is found in treaties, truth in transaction, order in government, the earth is at peace, and heaven itself sheds overus its beneficent light and radiates down to us its blessed influence." - Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

"The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation. It comes by the appreciation of the signs of the presence and power of God in our inner experience." - Edgar Sheffield Brightman

"If heaven is our country, what is the earth but a place of exile? If the departure out of the world is but an entrance into life, what is the world but a sepulchre? What is a continuance in it but an absorption in death?" -

"If you rest in the stillness like a broken gong, you have already reached heaven, for anger has left you." - Dhammapada NULL

"Happiness or misfortune are prescribed by law of Heaven, but their source comes from ourselves." - Nguyễn Du

"To love another better than one’s self is to begin heaven here. The greatest lesson of all is that the Father’s mansions are within one’s own breast. Heaven is here; the world of hope, anticipation, feeling, is all here. We have it here first, if we have it at all." -

"Divinity is not something supernatural that ever and again invades the natural order in a crashing miracle. Divinity is not in some remote heaven, seated on a throne. Divinity is love... Wherever goodness, beauty, truth, love, are - there is the divine." -

"Both heaven and hell are within us." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"I believe in the absolute oneness of God and therefore of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have but one soul... I know god is neither in heaven nor down below, but in everyone." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. . . . I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy." -

"With nature’s help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life sustaining. Everything in nature, the sum total of heaven and earth, becomes a temple and an altar for the service of God." - Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine NULL

"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"The kingdom of God is neither an unconditional divine gift sent down from heaven all at once, nor a simple human task to be completed in a few generations. It is both a gift and a task: an infinitely difficult, infinitely glorious divine-human undertaking requiring all God’s power and all man’s devotion, and even so stretching on from age to age as though it were endless." - Walter Marshall Horton

"Rites [li] rest on three bases: heaven and earth, which are the source of all life; the ancestors, who are the source of the human race; [and] sovereigns and teachers, who are the source of government... Should any of the three be missing, either there would be no people or people would be without peace. Hence rites are to serve Heaven on high and earth below, and to honor the ancestors and elevate the sovereigns and teachers... Who holds to the rites is never confused in the midst of multifarious change; who deviates therefrom is lost. Rites - are they not the culmination of culture?" - Hsun-Tzu NULL

"The truly religious man is always more concerned about what God will do in him that what He will do to him; in this intense desire for purification of his motives he almost wishes that heaven and hell were blotted out, that he might serve God for Himself alone." - William Ralph Inge

"Man has dual citizenry. He loves both in time and in eternity; both in heaven and on earth. But he owes his ultimate allegiance to God." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"The greatest wisdom seems like stupidity. The greatest eloquence like stuttering. Movement overcomes cold, but staying overcomes heat. So he by his limpid calm puts everything right under heaven." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own. The way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth, for constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"A single grateful thought toward Heaven is the most perfect prayer." - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

"The world does not stand or fall with discoveries or inventions, nor with the trample of armed hosts and the thunder of bombing planes. The world stands or falls with the laws of life which Heaven has written in the human conscience." - Pierre van Paassen

"The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart." -

"The Perfect Way is difficult only for those who pick and choose; do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart: if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease... There is no need to seek Truth; only stop having views... The ultimate Truth about both Extremes is that they are One Emptiness." -

"The world is just a scaffolding up which souls climb to the kingdom of Heaven." - Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

"Heaven-sent calamities you may stand up against, but you cannot survive those brought on by yourself." -

"Only virtue can compel Heaven, and there is no distance to which it cannot reach." -

"For some reason, too deep to fathom, men contend more furiously over the road to heaven, which they cannot see, than over their visible walks on earth." - Walter Parker Stacy

"All that is worldly can be transcended: one can reflect on all things between heaven and earth from a higher vantage point. The demands of the present are neglected, life becomes eternal. Coming to heaven, one enters a sphere beyond space and time. Why then should one aspire to being received by king and emperors?" - Chung-ch’ang T’ung

"From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, all must regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation. There is never a case in which the root is in disorder and yet the branches are in order." - Ta hseuh “Great Learning” NULL

"There was something formlessly fashioned, that existed before heaven and earth; without sound, without substance, dependent on nothing, unchanging, all-pervading, unfailing. One may think of it as the mother of all things under heaven." -

"All the way to heaven is heaven." - Teresa of Avila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"What is it but blasphemy when God is merely my means to an end? That takes its toll. If we turn God into a puppet of our desires (even when that happens by the pious route of prayer) then he shuts up his heaven and we find ourselves thrown back into the silence of our unredeemed life." - Helmut Thielicke

"We should not feel that something else gives life meaning, even some transcendental purpose… The religious aspect of life needs to be re-conceptualized to avoid the error of turning life into only a means to Heaven, Nirvana, or union with God." - Garrett Thomson

"Heaven is my Father, the earth my mother, and even a tiny creature such as myself finds an intimate place in their midst. In everything that moves throughout the universe, I see my own body, and in everything that governs the universe, my own soul. All men are my brethren, and all things my companions." - Zhang Zai, also Chang Tsai

"Wealth and honor, benefits and blessings shall enrich my life; poverty and failures, grief and anxiety shall help fulfill it. In my life, I will serve heaven and earth; in death I will find peace." - Zhang Zai, also Chang Tsai

"There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises, independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal. This is the thought of identity – yours for you, whoever you are, as mine for me. Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, most spiritual and vaguest of earth’s dreams, yet hardest basic fact, and only entrance to all facts. In such devout hours, in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth, (significant only because of the Me in the center), creeds, conventions, fall away and become of no account before this simple idea. Under the luminousness of real vision, it alone takes possession, takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated and look’d upon, it expands over the whole earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven." -

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy, but he beholds the light, and whence it flows, he sees it in his joy; the youth, who daily farther from the east must travel, still is Nature’s priest, and by the vision splendid is on his way attended; at length the man perceives it die away, and fade into the light of common day." - William Wordsworth