Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Two urns on Jove's high throne have ever stood, the source of evil one, and one of good; from thence the cup of mortal man he fills, blessings to these, to those distributes ills; to most he mingles both.

One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.

Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

If there is no hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.

I believe you can make forces of good and evil work for you, to get what you want.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

The will leadeth us to God, or to the devil; it availeth not whether thou hast the name of a Christian; salvation doth not consist therein.

There are so many things in my life that would be completely not on within the conservative church. And yet I think of myself as a reasonably decent human being. With all sorts of flaws, you know, but still reasonably decent. If I did believe in Heaven and Hell, I would really, honestly, believe I was going to go to Heaven.

Nature is at work. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow.

I feel like I'm worried about my later years in life because I feel like I'm using up so much good karma right now. There's going to be some sort of karmic backlash somewhere down the road.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

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.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

Most of us want to have enough... good works to get into heaven, but enough bad works to be fun.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

Freedom is a ladder: one side of the ladder reaches hell, the other side touches heaven. It is the same ladder; the choice is yours.

Each of us has heaven and hell in him.

If you want your own way, God will let you have it. Hell is the enjoyment of one's own way forever.

Destiny, or karma, depends upon what the soul has done about what it has become aware of.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.

People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.