Quotes from Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

Times of happiness, bliss, and sheer delight intensify as the higher levels of our minds are opened within us One our life on earth is over, these levels keep rising forever.

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

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.

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

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.

Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

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.

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.

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.

458 At times evil spirits have conjectured that some heaven other than the Lord's could exist. They have received permission to look for it wherever they could. To their own chagrin, they have never been able to locate one. Evil spirits rush headlong into all kinds of craziness, both because they hate the Lord and because hell is so painful, and these are the kinds of fantasies they seize on.

This new church is the crown of all the churches that have ever existed on this planet because it will worship the one God, who can be seen, within whom is the God that cannot be seen, like a soul in a body.

Some hells present an appearance like the ruins of houses and cities after conflagrations, in which infernal spirits dwell and hide themselves. In the milder hells there is an appearance of rude huts, in some cases contiguous in the form of a city with lanes and streets.

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.

By this faith instilled from childhood and afterward confirmed by preachings, it has come to pass that no one shuns evils from religion, but only from civil and moral law; thus not because they are sins but because they are damaging.

Every falsity is something we can convince ourselves of, and when we have done so it seems to us to be the truth:

So anyone who has the quality of goodness from the Lord is an angel-person.g

6] Then the ambassador asked him, "Can you make it true that you yourself are insane?" The provider of arguments said, "I could, but I don't want to. Who isn't insane?" Then people asked the provider of arguments to say from the heart whether he was joking or whether he really believed that there is no truth except what people make out to be true. He replied, "That is what I believe, I swear." Afterward

We have two abilities that make up our life, one called will and the other understanding. They are distinguishable, but they are created to be one. When they are one, they are called the mind; so they are the human mind and it is there that all the life within us is truly to be found.

Because these judges do not see justice at all, we in heaven view them not as human beings but as monstrous human images: their heads are made of friendship, their chests are made of injustice, their arms and legs are made of supporting arguments, and the soles of their feet are made of justice. If a particular form of justice doesn't favor their friend, they remove it and trample it. [5] You are about to find out what they are truly like inside. Their end has come." Then

El Señor no envía a nadie al infierno, es el mismo espíritu el que se arroja a él.

Historical faith causes the Lord to be present, because it is an intuition of the Lord from the quality of His Divinity. That faith does not save, until man lives the life of faith, which is charity, for he then wills and does the things which he believes, and to will and to do is of the love, and love conjoins him whom faith causes to be present.

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