quotations about eternity
A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
Pale Fire
The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Anam Cara
This world which stretches out before you, is but the vestibule of an immortal life. These deeds that are taking place around you, touch upon chords that extend by a thousand connections, visible and invisible, and vibrate in eternity.
EDWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN
Duties of Young Men
It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.
RICHARD JEFFERIES
The Story of My Heart
Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Man and Superman
Time is just quantified eternity.
DEEPAK CHOPRA
The Way of the Wizard
Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the rdots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
THOMAS BOSTON
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
The thought of eternity consoles for the shortness of life.
FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE
attributed, Thoughts for Meaningful Life
We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
PAULO COELHO
The Alchemist
The time will come when every change shall cease,
This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace:
No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze;
Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now shall ever last.
PETRARCH
Triumph of Eternity
Suppose, after one of our most violent snowstorms, which covers the earth for thousands of miles, one single flake were melted in a thousand years; or if a single beam of the sun's rays stood for a year, and as many years were added as there have been rays flooding the earth since the sun began to shine; or if a single drop of the ocean were exhaled in a million years, till the last drop was taken up; though we cannot conceive the duration of such apparently almost interminable periods, yet though we could, eternity would stretch as far beyond them as if they had not yet begun.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives.
ALEXANDER MACLAREN
Sermons Preached in Manchester
There's never a beginning for eternity.
TOBA BETA
Master of Stupidity
Many habitually think and act as if there is no eternity.... We major in the momentary and minor in the momentous.
RANDY ALCORN
Money
I will pause to consider this eternity from which the subsequent ones derive.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
"A History of Eternity"
When you can live forever what do you live for?
STEPHENIE MEYER
Twilight
The problem is, eternity is barred to humans, and so humans, all too painfully aware of that and entertaining little hope of appealing against that verdict of fate, seek to stifle and deafen their tragic wisdom in a hubbub of frail and fleeting pleasures. This admittedly being a false calculation--for the same reason which prompted it (that tragic wisdom can never be chased or conjured away for good)--they condemn themselves, whatever their material wealth, to perpetual spiritual poverty: to continuous unhappiness.... Instead of seeking the way to happiness within the limits of their predicament, they take a long detour, hoping that somewhere along the route their odious and repulsive destiny may be escaped or fooled--only to land back in the despair that prompted them to start on their voyage of (dearly wished for, yet unattainable) discovery. The only discovery humans can possibly make on that voyage is that the route they have taken was but a detour that sooner or later will bring them back to the starting line.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
The Art of Life
It is a long road that leads to eternity, and the inns for travelers are few.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Forever is a long time, but not as long as it was yesterday.
DENNIS H'ORGNIES
attributed, Quotable Quotes
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Adonais