156 Quotes by Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

Further still, heaven is where the Lord is recognized, trusted, and loved. The different ways he is worshiped – in variations that stem from the difference of activity from one community to another – do not cause harm but bring benefit, because they are a source of heaven’s perfection.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.