Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes

Enjoy the top 119 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Emanuel Swedenborg.

“Goodness shapes our will, and truth shapes our understanding.”
— Emanuel Swedenborg —

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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'.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“All the ancient churches were churches representative of spiritual things; the rites, and also the statutes, according to which their worship was established, consisted of pure correspondence.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

Destruction was effected after visitation, for visitation always precedes.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

Without such a Life, the Word as to the letter is dead.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“We are all spirits inwardly. This is what's alive in the body, not the body on its own.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“Seen in its own right, a loving person's inner spirit is an angel of heaven, and while we are living in the body we are also in the company of angels, even though we are not aware of it; and once we are released from the body we join them.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“Love is the life of humanity.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“The life of any one can by no means be changed after death; an evil life can in no wise be converted into a good life, or an infernal into an angelic life: because every spirit, from head to foot, is of the character of his love, and therefore, of his life; and to convert this life into its opposite, would be to destroy the spirit utterly.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“Goodness shapes our will, and truth shapes our understanding.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“A heavenly society is a harmony of many.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“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.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

No one's character is completely like another'sthis infinite variety is like a mirror in which we can see the infinity of God the Creator.

— Emanuel Swedenborg

“I have seen a thousand times that Angels are human form, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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

— Emanuel Swedenborg

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