Popular quotes about Paradise! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
Expulsion from Paradise is in its main aspect eternal: that is to say, although expulsion from Paradise is final, and life in theworld unavoidable, the eternity of the process (or, expressed in temporal terms, the eternal repetition of the process) nevertheless makes it possible not only that we might remain in Paradise permanently, but that we may in fact be there permanently, no matter whether we know it here or not.
Franz KafkaI still dwelled deep in my elected paradise--a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames--but still a paradise.
Vladimir NabokovThis having learnt, thou hast attained the sum Of wisdom; hope no higher, though all the stars Thou knew'st by name, and all th'ethereal powers, All secrets of the deep, all nature's works, Or works of God in heav'n, air, earth, or sea, And all the riches of this world enjoy'dst, And all the rule, one empire; onlyadd Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith, Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far.
John MiltonWhen I'm wandering around the Himalayas, most of the people that I see are Westerners from Germany, California, or the Netherlands, who are wearing sandals, Indian smocks, and are in search of enlightenment, antiquity, peace, and all the things they can't get in the west. Most of the people they meet are Nepali villagers in Lee jeans, Reeboks, and Madonna T-shirts who are looking for the paradise that they associate with Los Angeles - a paradise of material prosperity and abundance.
Pico IyerA fantasy can be equivalent to a paradise and if the fantasy passes, better yet, because eternal paradise would be very boring.
Juan Ramon JimenezHere we are told that Christ really lives in me, if I have accepted Christ as my Savior. In other words, we have the words of Jesus to the thief of the cross, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise.' Christ can say, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise,' and mean it. To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality. But at the same time, Christ, the same Christ who gives the promise just as definitely, that when I have accepted Christ as my savior, he lives in me.
Francis SchaefferThe love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyong reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.
Edward AbbeyAll play aspires to the condition of paradise...through play in all its forms...we hope to achieve a state that our larger Greco-Roman, Judeo- Christian culture has always known was lost. Where it exists, we do not know, although we always have envisioned it as a garden...always as removed, as an enclosed green place...Paradise is an ancient dream...It is a dream of ourselves as better than we are, back to what we were.
A. Bartlett GiamattiIf you don't keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be.
Paul David TrippLove! the surviving gift of Heaven, The choicest sweet of Paradise, In life's else bitter cup distilled.
Thomas CampbellFeathers! spluttered Sargatanas. Feathers are for the birds, my boy. Flaking, peeling, scale-ridden wings, now that's what real beings wear. I'll tell you a secret. He said, and drew me closer. The eternal pain at having known Paradise and lost it is priceless. I wouldn't swap it for anything.
George PendleIf you think about it seriously, all the questions about the soul and the immortality of the soul and paradise and hell are at bottom only a way of seeing this very simple fact: that every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.
Antonio GramsciSunday-the doctor's paradise! Doctors at country clubs, doctors at the seaside, doctors with mistresses, doctors with wives, doctors in church, doctors in yachts, doctors everywhere resolutely being people, not doctors.
Sylvia PlathThe home we seek is in eternity; The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea, Of which your paradise is but a drop. This ocean can be yours; why should you stop Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew? The secrets of the sun are yours, but you Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams. Turn to what truly lives, reject what seems -- Which matters more, the body or the soul? Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.
Farid al-Din AttarWhen I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me.
Sean ScullyPrayer brings a good spirit in our homes. For God hears prayer. Heaven itself would come down to our homes. And even though we who constitute the home all have our imperfections and our failings, our home would, through God's answer to prayer, become a little paradise.
Ole HallesbyI have never regretted Paradise Lost since I discovered that it contained no eggs-and-bacon.
Dorothy L. SayersSometime in the last 50,000 years, before 12,000 years ago, a kind of paradise came into existence. A situation in which men and women, parents and children, people and animals, human institutions and the land all were in dynamic balance and not in any primitive sense at all. Language was fully developed, poetry may have been at its climax, dance, magic, poetics, altruism, philosophy. There's no reason to think that these things were not practiced as adroitly as we practice them today and it was under the boundary dissolving influence of psilocybin.
Terence McKennaMichael had once read to her how God had cast a man and woman out of paradise. Yet, for all their human faults and failures. God had shown them the way back in.
Francine RiversIf anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise.
MuhammadSouth Carolina is in the spring a paradise, in the summer a hell, and in the autumn a hospital.
Eliza LucasA comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
Ambrose BierceBecause of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise]; because of impatience we cannot return.
Franz KafkaGod made sun and moon to distinguish the seasons, and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is always autumn. His mercies are ever in their maturity.
John DonneThe Tao can't be perceived. Smaller than an electron, it contains uncountable galaxies. If powerful men and women could remain centered in the Tao, all things would be in harmony. The world would become a paradise. All people would be at peace, and the law would be written in their hearts. When you have names and forms, know that they are provisional. When you have institutions, know where their functions should end. Knowing when to stop, you can avoid any danger. All things end in the Tao as rivers flow into the sea.
LaoziWhat is paradise, but, a garden, an orchard of trees and herbs, full of pleasure and nothing there but delights.
William LawsonI am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves.
George EliotHappiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.
Margaret AtwoodPrejudices are useless. Call Los Angeles any dirty name you like - Six Suburbs in Search of a City, Paradise with a Lobotomy, anything - but the fact remains that you are already living in it before you get there
Clive JamesI don't know of a single instance of these Arab freedom fighters holding up pictures of bin Laden. I know many instances of them displaying American flags in Benghazi or painting 'Facebook' on their foreheads in Cairo. The idea of freedom . . . is absolutely contradictory to what bin Laden stood for, which was . . . taking Muslims back to some medieval theocracy and encouraging people to die not for freedom but to go to paradise and to kill innocent people along the way. The contrast is really striking.
Paul WolfowitzWhy do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it.
Franz KafkaThis is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.
Walter BenjaminI should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
Jean RostandThe UN wasn't created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell.
Dag HammarskjoldMan can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise.
Tommy DouglasThere is actually a huge suicide problem in Palo Alto schools, so obviously not all is well in paradise. High expectations, and the pressure to achieve in a highly competitive world are too much for a lot of very promising young people. There have been something like ten youth suicides in Palo Alto in the past ten years. They usually step in front of the train that runs by the high school.
James FrancoI really like 'This Side of Paradise' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think it's a cool description of a character.
Bridgit MendlerAh, if only a few more massacres would suffice To sort it all out once and for all With so many uprisings and so many fallen heads In Paradise we should all be by now! But the wished-for Golden Age is endlessly postponed The gods remain so thirsty, they are insatiable Thus it is death, an endless cycle of death
Georges BrassensA man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.
Jim MorrisonWe're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.
Joseph Campbell