Eternity

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops. ~ Henry Brooks Adams
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour. ~ William Blake
If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been. ~ John Donne
Do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
~ T. S. Eliot in The Four Quartets
Every situation, every moment — is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end: we fancy that we have always possessed what we love, so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it. ~ Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
In time there is no present,
In eternity no future,
In eternity no past.

We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die.
Who will riddle me the how and the why? ~ Alfred Tennyson

Eternity is a word often used to indicate notions of "limitless" or "endless" time, and also ideas of realms of Reality which are beyond any or all of the dimensions of Time and Space.

Quotes

Arranged alphabetically by author
  • Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
  • Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
    • William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "Proverbs of Hell"
  • Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the rdots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
    None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.
    • Thomas Boston, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212
  • The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity.
  • Eternity forbids thee to forget.
  • Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. There's a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Bodhisattva, the one whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi), who realizes his identity with eternity and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder and to come back and participate in it.
  • What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
    • William Ellery Channing, as quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 210
  • Consider and act with reference to the true ends of existence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
    • Edwin Hubbell Chapin, as quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 6
  • Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal Now does always last.
  • If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been.
    • John Donne, Book of Devotions, Meditation 14 (1624)
  • At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
    Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
    But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
    Where past and future are gathered.     Neither movement from nor towards,
    Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
    There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
    I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
    And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
  • Beyond the grave! As the vision rises how this side dwindles into nothing — a speck — a moment — and its glory and pomp shrink into the trinkets and baubles that amuse an infant for a day. Only those things, in the glory of this light, which lay hold of immortality, seem to have any value.
    • Randolph Sinks Foster, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212
  • Every situation, every moment — is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as quoted in Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret (1850) translated by John Oxenford, Vol. I, p. 87
  • The tree will not only lie as it falls, but it will fall as it leans. What is the inclination of my soul?
    • Joseph John Gurney, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 213
  • I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, "Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!" It reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, "If there is no God — doubtless there is a hell." I found myself in the midst of it.
    • Stephen Grellet, in Memoirs of the Life and Gospel Labors of Stephen Grellet (1860), p. 20
  • Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or of suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance, entirely its own. It gives that weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance.
    • Robert Hall, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212
  • Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity.
    • Reginald Heber, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 213
  • Summarum summa est æternum.
    • The sum total of all sums total is eternal.
    • Lucretius in De Rerum Natura, III, 817. Also in Book V, 362
  • Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?
    • Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 207
  • Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
  • Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
    To lay thir just hands on that golden key
    That opes the palace of Eternity.
    To such my errand is; and but for such,
    I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
    With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
  • From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.
    • Edvard Munch, quoted in Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors (2007) by William Thompson and Kim Sorvig, p. 30
  • Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,
    Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,
    In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd,
    Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;
    And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last
    The speed that spins the future and the past:
    And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,
    Awful eternity shall reign alone.
    • Petrarch, Triumph of Eternity, line 102
  • The time will come when every change shall cease,
    This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace:
    No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze;
    Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past,
    But an eternal now shall ever last.
    • Petrarch, Triumph of Eternity, line 117
  • The youth of the soul is everlasting, and eternity is youth.
    • Jean Paul Richter, reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 213
  • Was man von der Minute ausgeschlagen
    Gibt keine Ewigkeit zurück.
    • Eternity gives nothing back of what one leaves out of the minutes.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Resignation, Stanza 18
  • We feel and experience ourselves to be eternal. (Latin: "Sentimus experimurque nos æternos esse.")
  • Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end: we fancy that we have always possessed what we love, so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it.
    • Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, in Corinne (1807), Bk. 8, Ch. 2, as translated by Isabel Hill (1833)
    • Variant translation: It is certainly through love that eternity can be understood; it confuses all thoughts about time; it destroys the ideas of beginning and end; one thinks one has always been in love with the person one loves, so difficult is it to conceive that one could live without him.
      • As translated by Sylvia Raphael (1998)
  • I am any man's suitor,
    If any will be my tutor:
    Some say this life is pleasant,
    Some think it speedeth fast,
    In time there is no present,
    In eternity no future,
    In eternity no past.

    We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die.
    Who will riddle me the how and the why?

  • Life is not hurrying
    on to a receding future, nor hankering after
    an imagined past. It is the turning
    aside like Moses to the miracle
    of the lit bush, to a brightness
    that seemed as transitory as your youth
    once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
    • R. S. Thomas, in "The Bright Field" in Laboratories of the Spirit (1975), p. 60
  • somewhere within sight
    of the tree of poetry
    that is eternity wearing
    the green leaves of time.
  • And can eternity belong to me,
    Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 237-38.
  • Then gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,
    The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
    Hush, ye will say, it is eternity!
    This is the glimmering verge of heaven, and there
    The columns of the heavenly palaces.
  • The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity.
  • Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise
    Up between two eternities!
  • This speck of life in time's great wilderness
    This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
    The past, the future, two eternities!
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Last modified on 13 May 2013, at 02:20