Hans Christian Andersen Quotes

If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got.

Death is the great hope of all life; the desire to expend itself; to be used and consumed by its own longing for itself.

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.

By aiming for paradise, we lose sight of earth. Hope of a beyond and aspiration to an afterlife engender a sense of futility in the present. If the prospect of getting taken up to paradise generates joy, it is the mindless joy of a baby picked up from his crib.

I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.

The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love; therefore, we wish to live.

Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright.

I can't die but once.

Living, he made life beautiful. Dying, he made death divine

The only length of life that seems to satisfy the longings of the human heart is life everlasting.

Personally, I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate.

The first step to eternal life is you have to die.

I think everyone, especially after the passing of a loved one, starts to hope that maybe there will be something better on the other side.

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow -- Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

I have good hope that there is something after death.

Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.

I have good hope that there is something remaining for the dead.

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear- Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.

Should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my last breath.

The Dead are like the stars by day; Withdrawn from mortal eye, But not extinct, they hold their way In glory through the sky.

We passionately long that there may be another life in which we shall be similar to what we are here below. But we do not pause to reflect that, even without waiting for that other life, in this life, after a few years we are unfaithful to what we have been, to what we wished to remain immortally.

Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.

As I go into a cemetery I like to think of the time when the dead shall rise from their graves. ... Thank God, our friends are not buried; they are only sown!

I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.