Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes

59 Sourced Quotes

The end of creation is that all things may return to the Creator and be united with Him.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Charity itself consists in acting justly and faithfully in whatever office, business and employment a person is engaged in.

Emanuel Swedenborg
A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship.

Emanuel Swedenborg
First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Such as the love is, such is the wisdom, consequently such is the man.

Emanuel Swedenborg
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.

Emanuel Swedenborg
We are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are. We can see, then, that when we die we simply move from one world into another.

Emanuel Swedenborg
There is one God, in whom there is the Divine Trinity, and he is the Lord Jesus Christ. This can be briefly illustrated in the following way: It is a certain and established truth that God is one, and his essence cannot be divided; and also that there is a Trinity. Since God is One, and his essence cannot be divided, it follows that God is one Person. And since he is one Person, the Trinity is in that Person. It is clear that this Person is the Lord Jesus Christ from the fact that he was conceived from God the Father (Luke 1:34, 35), and thus as to his soul and life itself he is God. Therefore, as he himself said, "he and the Father are one." (John 10:30).

Emanuel Swedenborg
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.

Emanuel Swedenborg
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.

Emanuel Swedenborg
When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit, then we say that the individual has died. This happens when the lungs' breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. The person, though, has not died at all. We are only separated from the physical nature that was useful to us in the world. The essential person is actually still alive.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Everything good or true that the angels inspire in us is God's, so God is constantly talking to us. He talks very differently, though, to one person than to another.

Emanuel Swedenborg
The church of the Lord is spread over all the globe, and is thus universal; and all those are in it who have lived in the good of charity in accordance with their religion....

Emanuel Swedenborg
Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them

Emanuel Swedenborg
Destruction was effected after visitation, for visitation always precedes.

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

Emanuel Swedenborg
For the judgment was accomplished not only upon all the men of the Christian church, but also upon all who are called Mohammedans, and, moreover, upon all the Gentiles in the whole world.

Emanuel Swedenborg
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.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.

Emanuel Swedenborg
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

Emanuel Swedenborg
I am well aware that many will say that no one can possibly speak with spirits and angels so long as he lives in the body; and many will say that it is all fancy, others that I relate such things in order to gain credence, and others will make other objections.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Since the Bible is a divine revelation, every single part of it is divine. Anything that comes from the divine could be no other way. Everything that comes from the divine goes down through the heavens all the way to people on earth. In heaven it is adapted to the wisdom of the angels there, and on earth it is adapted to the understanding of the people there. So the Bible has an inner, spiritual meaning for angels and an outer, material-level meaning for people on earth. That is why our connection to heaven happens through the Bible.

Emanuel Swedenborg
It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within... and a man, also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel.

Emanuel Swedenborg
The act of exploring what the men are, and moreover the separation of the good from the evil, is visitation; and the good are then removed, and the evil are left behind.

Emanuel Swedenborg
That all who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell, follows from those things which have been said and shown in the preceding article, namely, that Heaven and Hell are from the human race.

Emanuel Swedenborg
Man, before he is being regenerated, does not even know that any internal man exists, much
less is he acquainted with its nature and quality.

Emanuel Swedenborg
The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be.

Emanuel Swedenborg
We all have spirits present with us who are feeling the way we are.

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

Emanuel Swedenborg