ETERNITY
Addison, Joseph
Eternity, thou pleasing dreadful thought! through what variety of untried being! through what new scenes and changes must we pass! The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; but shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett
Eternity stands always fronting God; a stern colossal image, with blind eyes, and grand dim lips, that murmur evermore, "God — God—God!"
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George
What we call eternity may be but an endless series of the transitions which men call deaths, abandonments of home, going ever to fairer scenes and loftier heights.—Age after age, the spirit—that glorious nomad—may shift its tent, carrying with it evermore its elements, activity and desire.
Caird, John
The eternal world is not merely a world beyond time and the grave. It embraces time; it is ready to realize itself under all the forms of temporal things. Its light and power are latent everywhere, waiting for human souls to welcome it, ready to break through the transparent veil of earthly things and to suffuse with its ineffable radiance the common life of man.
Carlyle, Thomas
Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grows meaner and more hostile.
Chalmers, Thomas
The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is, that we believe what the Bible tells us and do what the Bible bids us.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
There is, I know not how, in the minds of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence, and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls.
Clarke, Macdonald
The most momentous concern of man is the state he shall enter upon after this short and transitory life is ended; and in proportion as eternity is of greater importance than time, so ought men to be solicitous upon what grounds their expeciations with regard to that durable state are built, and on what assurances their hopes or their fears stand.
Colton, Caleb C.
He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more he contemplates them, the former will grow greater and the latter less.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties.
Emmons, Nathaniel
How vast is eternity!—It will swallow up all the human race; it will collect all the intelligent universe; it will open scenes and prospects wide enough, great enough, and various enough to fix the attention, and absorb the minds of all intelligent beings forever.
Farrar, Frederick William
No man can pass into eternity, for he is already in it.
Foster, John
Our object in life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity.—Now we ask the sage, the genius, the philosopher, the divine, but none can tell; but, we will open our queries to other respondents—we will ask angels, redeemed spirits, and God.
Hall, Robert
Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance entirely its own.—It gives weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance.
Hare, August W.
The grand difficulty is so to feel the reality of both worlds as to give each its due place in our thoughts and feelings—to keep our mind's eye, and our heart's eye, ever fixed on the land of Promise, without looking away from the road along which we are to travel toward it.
Hemans, Felicia
Let me dream that love goes with us to the shore unknown.
Malesherbes, Chretien Guillaume
The thought of eternity consoles for the shortness of life.
Paley, William
Eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name.—It supposes, in that to which it is applied, a present existence, and is the negation of a beginning or an end of that existence.
Richter, Jean Paul
The wish falls often, warm upon my heart, that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.
Robertson, Frederick William
Every natural longing has its natural satisfaction. If we thirst, God has created liquids to gratify thirst. If we are susceptible of attachment, there are beings to gratify that love. If we thirst for life and love eternal, it is likely that there are an eternal life and an eternal love to satisfy that craving.
Southey, Robert
The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith.—The successful man feels that the objects he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the craving of an immortal spirit. The wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.
