Emanuel Swedenborg
One can see how great the delight of heaven must be from the fact that it is the delight of everyone in heaven to share his delights and blessings with others; and as such is the character of all that are in the heavens it is clear how immeasurable is the delight of heaven.Collection: Blessing
Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction.Collection: Charity
The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happinessCollection: Love
The sky is an enormous man.Collection: Men
What a man thinks in his spirit in the world, that he does after his departure from the world when he becomes a spirit.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Angel
He who assists a poor or needy villain does evil to his neighbor...for through the assistance which he renders he...supplies him with the means of doing evil to others.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Life
So far any one shuns evils, so far as he does good.Collection: Evil
Charity alone, or love and compassion, is what joins [the Lord and a person] together.Collection: Love
Charity itself consists in acting justly and faithfully in whatever office, business and employment a person is engaged in.Collection: Office
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.Collection: Animal
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.Collection: Opportunity
Marriages on earth--because they are the seminaries of the human race and of the angels of heaven also; because, likewise, they proceed from a spiritual origin, that is, from the marriage of good and truth; and since, in addition, the Lord's divine proceeding principally flows into conjugal love--are most holy in the estimation of the angels.Collection: Spiritual
So far as the Angels are recipients of that spiritual heat and light they are loves and wisdoms, not loves and wisdoms for themselves, but from the Lord.Collection: Love
There are angels that receive more interiorly the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angelsCollection: Spiritual
A heavenly society is a harmony of many.Collection: Harmony
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.Collection: Love
To have dominion by religion, is to have dominion over men's souls, thus over their very spiritual life, and to use the Divine things, which are in their religion, as the meansCollection: Spiritual
This Divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord from His Divine loveCollection: Heaven
Destruction was effected after visitation, for visitation always precedes.Collection: Destruction
If love is not married to wisdom (or if goodness is not married to truth), it cannot accomplish anything.Collection: Love Is
Love is the life of humanity.Collection: Love
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 itCollection: Love
Heaven is such that all who have lived well, of whatever religion, have a place there.Collection: Heaven
A man who knows all goods and all truths, as many as can be known, but does not shun evils, knows nothing.Collection: 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.Collection: Death
One's distance from Heaven is in proportion to the measure of one's self-love.Collection: Spiritual
The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be.Collection: Good Life
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.Collection: Angel
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.Collection: Heaven
A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship.Collection: Kindness
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.Collection: Angel
Every man is received in heaven who receives heaven in himself while in the world, and he is excluded who does not.Collection: Men
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 loveCollection: Inspire
The Lord casts no one down in Hell, but the spirit casts himself hither.Collection: Spirit
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.Collection: Spiritual
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.Collection: Good Night
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.Collection: Love Is
Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.Collection: Summer
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.Collection: Angel
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.Collection: Angel
The more one is absorbed in so-called philosophy, the greater one's delusion and blindness.Collection: Philosophy
A man after death, is not a natural but a spiritual man; nevertheless he still appears in all respects like himself.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Change
All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do goodCollection: Relate
The end of creation is that all things may return to the Creator and be united with Him.Collection: May