Emmanuel Swedenborg Quotes

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

All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good.

A person who knows all that is good and all that is true — as much as can be known — but does not resist evils, knows nothing.

Homo qui scit omnia bona et omnia vera, quotcunque sciri possunt, et non fugit mala, nihil scit

Man knows that love is, but not what it is.

[6] Then the ambassador asked him, “Can you make it true that you yourself are insane?” The provider of arguments said, “I could, but I don’t want to. Who isn’t insane?” Then people asked the provider of arguments to say from the heart whether he was joking or whether he really believed that there is no truth except what people make out to be true. He replied, “That is what I believe, I swear.” Afterward

So anyone who has the quality of goodness from the Lord is an angel-person.g

At the end, the council brought all its discussions together into a single conclusion: The divine Trinity exists within the Lord the Savior; the Trinity is made up of the divine nature as an origin called “the Father,” the divine human manifestation called “the Son,” and the emanating divine influence called “the Holy Spirit”; therefore there is one God in the church. After the council came to an end, the participants were given shining clothing and were led to the new heaven.

The Divine Human from eternity was the Divine truth in heaven, and the Divine passing through heaven, thus the Divine Existere which afterward in the Lord became the Divine Esse by Itself [per se], from which is the Divine Existere in heaven,

The opposite happens if we remain earthly. Then we greatly desire to rule heaven from our world. All who have a love for power that comes from loving themselves are like this. If we are examined inwardly, it is discovered that we do not believe in any god, but only in ourselves. After death, we believe that we are a god who has greater power than others. This is the kind of insanity that exists in hell. It falls to such a depth that some there say they are God the Father, some say they are God the Son, and others say they are God the Holy Spirit. Some Jews there say they are the Messiah.

It is important to note, however, that these two loves can be more prevalent among commoners than among the great; more prevalent among the poor than among the wealthy; more prevalent among subjects than among royalty. The latter in each case are born into power and wealth. Over time, the latter come to view their power and wealth much the way people at a somewhat lower level — commanders, governors, admirals, or even impoverished farm workers — view their own households and possessions. It is not the same, though, when monarchs wish to exercise power over nations that are not their own.

PARTICULAR CAUSES OF DISEASE That straitness of spirit is a state near desperation, may be manifest from this consideration, that they who are in a state near desperation have an external anxiety, and in such case are actually in straitness of spirit. Straitness of spirit, in the external sense, is a compression of the breast, and thence as it were a difficulty of respiration. In the internal sense it is an anxiety by reason of the deprivation of the truth which is of faith, and of the good which is of charity, and thence a state near desperation. A state of compression as to respiration, and anxiety on account of the deprivation of the truth of faith and the good of charity, correspond to each other, as a natural effect in the body grounded in a spiritual cause in the mind. That the deprivation of spiritual truth and good produces such anxiety, and consequently such straitness, cannot be believed by those who are not in faith and charity, for these imagine that to be tormented on such account is weakness and sickliness of mind.

The angels sent one of their own down to the church to teach the congregation about redemption. This angel said that the suffering on the cross was not redemption. Redemption was a matter of gaining control over the hells, restructuring the heavens, and restoring all things that had lapsed in both the spiritual and the physical world. Without these achievements, no flesh could have been saved [Matthew 24: 22]. He said that the Lord’s suffering on the cross was the last step in achieving union with the Father at the deepest level. He also said that confusing the suffering on the cross with redemption entails thinking many unworthy and in fact horrendous things about God — that God locked the whole human race into damnation, but the Son took that damnation on himself, which appeased the Father; then the Son’s intercession restored the Father to his divine essence, which is love and mercy; not to mention many other qualities that are very wrong to ascribe to God.

By this faith instilled from childhood and afterward confirmed by preachings, it has come to pass that no one shuns evils from religion, but only from civil and moral law; thus not because they are sins but because they are damaging.

Every falsity is something we can convince ourselves of, and when we have done so it seems to us to be the truth: