Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes

So far any one shuns evils, so far as he does good.

Man, when he is re-born, passes through the ages as he who is born; and the preceding state is always as an egg in respect to the subsequent one, thus he is continually conceived and born: and this not only when he lives in the world, but also when he comes into another life to eternity: and still when he cannot be further perfected, then to be as an egg to those things which remain to be manifested, which are indefinite.

Sacred scripture is like a mirror in which we see God, although each in a different way.

The angels taken collectively are called heaven, for they constitute heaven; and yet that which makes heaven in general and in particular is the Divine that goes forth from the Lord and flows into the angels and is received by them.

Two consorts in heaven are not two, but one angel.

Every single moment of a person's life, both of the understanding and of the will, is a new beginning.

Faith is knowing and thinking truths. Charity is willing and doing them.

Worship does not consist in prayers and in external devotion, but in a life of kindness.

The church of the Lord is spread over all the globe, and is thus universal; and all those are in it who have lived in the good of charity in accordance with their religion ...

This I can declare: things that are in heaven are more real than things that are in the world.

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

For those who trust in the Divine all things are moving towards an everlasting state of happiness, and no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state.

Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want, and do.

But by all this I am not deterred, for I have seen, I have heard, I have felt.

In the spiritual body moreover, man appears such as he is with respect to love and faith, for everyone in the spiritual world is the effigy of his own love, not only as to the face and the body, but also as to the speech and the actions

Man knows that there is love, but he does not know what love is.

Others work among the spirits that have just arrived in the world of spirits. Again others raise the children who have died in infancy. Swedenborg ensures the parents of these infants that 'All children whether born within or outside of the church, are adopted by the Lord and become Angels'.

Every one may know that to will and not to do, when there is opportunity, is in reality not to will; and that to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it. Will, which stops short of action, and love, which does not do the good that is loved, is a mere thought separate from will and love, which vanishes and comes to nothing.

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

For the spiritual sense of the Word treats everywhere of the spiritual world, that is, of the state of the church in the heavens, as well as in the earth; hence the Word is spiritual and Divine.

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

Angels can recognize the nature of our unique essence on the basis of nothing more than a brief conversation with us. From hearing the tone of our voice angels sense what we love; and from hearing what we say, angels sense our level of understanding.

Heaven is such that all who have lived well, of whatever religion, have a place there.

Charity means love towards the neighbor and compassion, for anyone who loves his neighbor as himself also has as much compassion for him in his suffering as he does for himself in his own.

Love comes into being through useful service to others.

Destruction was effected after visitation, for visitation always precedes.

for heaven is within us, and people who have heaven within them come into heaven. The heaven within us is our acknowledgment of the Divine and our being led by the Divine.

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

Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction.

People who have intended and loved what is evil in the world intend and love what is evil in the other life, and then they no longer allow themselves to be led away from it. This is why people who are absorbed in evil are connected to hell and actually are there in spirit; and after death they crave above all to be where their evil is. So after death, it is we, not the Lord, who cast ourselves into hell.

People are unaware that spirits even exist, let alone that angels are present with them.

Such as the love is, such is the wisdom, consequently such is the man (n. 368)
(Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763)

For the judgment was accomplished not only upon all the men of the Christian church, but also upon all who are called Mohammedans, and, moreover, upon all the Gentiles in the whole world.

All in heaven take joy in sharing their delights and blessings with others.

This Divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord from His Divine love.

Love is the life of humanity.

Man is so created that as to his internal he cannot die; for he is capable of believing in God, and thus of being conjoined to God by faith and love, and to be conjoined to God is to live to eternity.

It is no proof of a man's understanding to be able to affirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false, this is the mark and character of intelligence.

That all who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell, follows from those things which have been said and shown in the preceding article, namely, that Heaven and Hell are from the human race.

Heaven is not located on high, but where the good of love is, and this resides within a person, wherever he or she might be.

Self-love and the love of the world constitute hell.

It is amazing but true that it is easy for any of us to rebuke someone else who is intending to do something evil and say, "Don't do that - that's a sin!" And yet it is difficult for us to say the same thing to ourselves. The reason is that saying it to ourselves requires a movement of the will, but saying it to someone else requires only a low level of thought based on things we have heard.

Charity itself consists in acting justly and faithfully in whatever office, business and employment a person is engaged in.

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.

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.

I have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have invariably declared that in heaven they are unable to divide the Divine into three, because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and this One is in the Lord.

Love means setting aside walls, fences, and unlocking doors and saying 'Yes.' One can be in paradise by simply saying 'yes' to this moment.

Peace has in it trust in the Lord, that He governs all things, provides all things, and leads to a good end.

The human race is the basis on which heaven is founded, is because man was last created, and that which is last created is the basis of all that precedes.

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

Our love is our life itself. What our love is like determines how we live and therefore everything about what we are as human beings.

One's distance from Heaven is in proportion to the measure of one's self-love.

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

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.

The quality of the Lord's church on earth, cannot be seen by any man, so long as he lives in the world, still less how the church in process of time has turned aside from good to evil.

For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter.

We do need to realize, though, that it is the quality of our love that determines the quality of this life.

The divine essence itself is love and wisdom.

Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own

Man, before he is being regenerated, does not even know that any internal man exists, much
less is he acquainted with its nature and quality.

I am well aware that many will say that no one can possibly speak with spirits and angels so long as he lives in the body; and many will say that it is all fancy, others that I relate such things in order to gain credence, and others will make other objections.

It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within ... and a man, also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel.

That every man after the life in the world lives to eternity, is evident from this, that man is then spiritual, and no longer natural, and that the spiritual man, separated from the natural, remains such as he is to eternity, for man's state cannot be changed after death.

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

God created us in such a way that our inner self is in the spiritual world and our outer self is in the physical world. This was so that the spiritual part of us, which belongs in heaven, could be planted in the physical part the way a seed is planted in the ground.

A person who knows all that is good and all that is true
as much as can be known
but does not resist evils, knows nothing.

A man after death, is not a natural but a spiritual man; nevertheless he still appears in all respects like himself.

True wisdom is seeing what is beneficial to your eternal life, and managing your life according to that. You do this when you not only know these things and grasp them with your understanding, but also will and do them.

Conscience is God's presence in humans.

Wherefore the brain must be looked upon as the universal and general sensory and at the same time as the universal and general motory organ of the body and finally as the universal and general laboratory of the animal spirits and the blood or of the essential juices of life.

The end of creation is that all things may return to the Creator and be united with Him.

All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good

Man knows that love is, but not what it is.

What a man thinks in his spirit in the world, that he does after his departure from the world when he becomes a spirit.