Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes (40 Quotes)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 conjunction is effected by love, and love is not love without trust.

Destruction was effected after visitation, for visitation always precedes.

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

The human race is the seminary of heaven, will appear from a subsequent article, in which it will be shown, that Heaven and Hell are from the human race, and that therefore the human race is the seminary of heaven.

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.

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.

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.

Angels from their wisdom go still further. They say that not only every thing good and true is from the Lord, but every thing of life as well.

Angelic happiness is in service, from service, and according to service.

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.

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

Moreover, no one is judged from the natural man, thus not so long as he lives in the natural world, for man is then in a natural body; but everyone is judged in the spiritual man, and therefore when he comes into the spiritual world, for man is then in a spiritual body.

Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them.

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.

First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend.

And as the Divine that goes forth from the Lord is the good of love and the truth of faith, the angels are angels and are heaven in the measure in which they receive good and truth from the Lord.

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

In heaven there are two distinct loves, love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor, in the inmost or third heaven love to the Lord, in the second or middle heaven love towards the neighbor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.

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 angels.

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.

In the Christian world... it is believed that angels were created at the beginning, and that heaven was formed of them; and that the Devil or Satan was an angel of light, who, becoming rebellions, was cast down with his crew, and that this was the origin of hell.

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 means.

Charity alone, or love and compassion, is what joins the Lord and a person together.

The act of exploring what the men are, and moreover the separation of the good from the evil, is visitation; and the good are then removed, and the evil are left behind.

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....

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.

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 happiness.