Sunday, February 5, 2012

What some famous people have said about hell

I happened to run across this quote the other day--"Hell is other people"--and I didn't remember who had said it. So I googled it and found out that it was Jean-Paul Sartre who is the responsible party. Interesting quote--makes you wonder in what context he meant it. Was he surrounded by babblers and sycophants his entire life? If so, then I can imagine that would have been hell to a philosopher and thinker who required solitude in order to think and to write. Or was he just a miser with his affections and love, a man who hurt those who loved him? Because to say that hell is other people is really quite a drastic statement. If he was still alive, I'd ask him what he meant by this. But that's not possible. So I found some other famous quotations about hell. If nothing else, they make you think.


The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
Dante Alighieri

If you're going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
Buddha

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Abraham Lincoln

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.
Mark Twain

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
William Shakespeare

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
C. S. Lewis

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry S. Truman

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
Voltaire

I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.
Joel Osteen

Every man is his own hell.
H. L. Mencken

A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the Supreme abode.
Chanakya

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.
Robert Frost

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
Robert Frost

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
Milton Friedman

War is hell.
William Tecumseh Sherman

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
Aldous Huxley

Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.
Aldous Huxley

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
John Keats

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.
John Donne

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.
Thomas Merton

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.
Thomas Merton

The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
John Milton




The four important F's

My friend Cindy, who is a retired minister, sends me different spiritual and inspirational reflections as she comes across them and thinks I...