The Inferno quotes

For in the course of years I have become an atheist, since the unknown powers have left the world to itself without giving a sign of themselves.

Someone to thank! There is no one there, and my involuntary ingratitude depresses me.

Feeling jealous about my discovery, I take no steps to make it known. In my modesty I turn neither to authorities nor to universities. While I continue my experiments, the cracked skin of my hands becomes worse, the fissures gape and become full of coal-dust;

Solitary, guilty of suicide and assassination, I forget my crime under the weight of sorrow and care. No one visits me, and I can see no one, since I have alienated all.

I drift alone over the surface of the sea; I have hoisted my anchor, but have no sail.

Necessity, however, in the shape of an unpaid bill, interrupts my scientific tasks and metaphysical speculations, and calls me back to earth.

She is seized with sympathy at seeing me so prostrate. Poor herself, and oppressed with daily anxieties, she resolves to make a collection among the Scandinavian colony, and to go to the pastor of the community.

A sinful woman has pity on the man who has deserted his lawful wife!

Once more a beggar, asking for alms by means of a woman, I begin to suspect that there is an invisible hand which guides the irresistible logic of events. I bow before the storm, determined to rise again at the first opportunity.

“

Explain? Has one ever explained anything by replacing one heap of words with another heap of words?

”

Born with a heavenly homesickness, I wept as a child over the filthiness of life, and felt strange and homeless among relations and friends.

From childhood onwards I have sought for God and found the Devil.

I have borne the cross of Christ in my youth, and have denied a God who delights to reign over slaves who love their tormentor.

I am in a mood like Faust’s when he exclaims, “the earth has me again,” but more tender and purer. I am delighted in taking the little one on my arm, and feeling her heart beat against mine.

Love for a child turns a man into a woman; it is sexless and heavenly, as Swedenborg says.

This is the beginning of my education for heaven. But I have not yet done penance enough.

The crater-shaped valley, the pine-crowned hill, the ravine with the stream, the heaps of dung, the pigsty—they are all there.

Hell? But I have been brought up in the profoundest contempt of the doctrine of hell, as one consigned to the rubbish-heap of outworn ideas.

And yet I cannot deny the fact—and that is the novelty in this exposition of the doctrine of so-called eternal punishment—we are already in hell.

And yet I cannot deny the fact—and that is the novelty in this exposition of the doctrine of so-called eternal punishment—we are already in hell.

Earth, earth is hell⁠—the dungeon appointed by a superior power, in which I cannot move a step without injuring the happiness of others, and in which others cannot remain happy without hurting me.

Thus Swedenborg depicts hell, and perhaps without knowing it, earthly life, at the same time.

Oh, vanity of vanities! Then, after the first disappointment, the powers rekindle the flame of ambition and desire; and satisfied greed and satiety are still a worse torment than unquenched appetite.

Thus the Devil suffers everlasting punishment, for he gets all he wants at once, so that he cannot enjoy it.

When I compare the Swedenborgian hells with the punishments described in the German Mythology, I find an obvious likeness, but for me the bare fact that both these books have fallen into my hand exactly at the right moment is the essential point.

I have sacrificed my morning hour. So do I atone for the evil which in a moment of madness I had wished to conjure down on this angel’s head.

What a penance⁠—to be loved! Truly the powers are not so cruel as we are!

I stoop to pick it up. Something falls on my head, and when I extricate it from my hair, I find it is another piece of wax. Instead of being alarmed, I cannot help smiling; the whole thing seems a piece of practical joking.

Smiling at death! How could that be possible, were not life essentially comic.

Such a fuss about nothing! Perhaps in the depth of our souls there lurks a shadowy consciousness that everything down here is all humbug, a masquerade, a mere pretence, and that all our sufferings afford mirth to the gods.

Smiling at death! How could that be possible, were not life essentially comic. Such a fuss about nothing!

Perhaps in the depth of our souls there lurks a shadowy consciousness that everything down here is all humbug, a masquerade, a mere pretence, and that all our sufferings afford mirth to the gods.

High over the hill on which the castle is built there towers another, from which a more commanding view over the Inferno-like landscape can be gained than from any other.

Five years later, you have shown me the absurdity of socialism; you have made all my prophecies futile. And supposing I become again religious, I am sure that, in another ten years, you will reduce religion to an absurdity.

Ah! what a game the gods play with us poor mortals!

And therefore, in the most tormented moments of life, we too can laugh with self-conscious raillery.

you empty again all the cups which you have drunk to the dregs so often; you crucify your skeleton when there is no more flesh left to crucify; you consume your soul when your heart is reduced to ashes!

Those are the “mills of God” which grind slowly but exceeding small.

You are ground to powder, and think it is over. But no! You are brought again to the mill. Be thankful! That is hell upon earth, as Luther knew it, and reckoned it a special grace to be pulverised on this side of the grave.

Shall we pray? What! Presume to try to alter the will and decision of the Eternal by flattery and crawling?

I look for God and find the Devil! That is my destiny!

I have repented and reformed myself.

I try to love mankind in the mass; I shut my eyes to their faults, and with inexhaustible patience endure their meanesses and slanders, and one fine day I find myself a sharer of their crimes.

Whenever I withdraw from society which I consider injurious, the demons of solitude attack me, and when I look for better friends, I come on the track of the worst.

Yes, after I have conquered my evil inclinations and through loneliness have attained to a certain degree of inward peace, I am caught in the snare of self-satisfaction and despising my neighbour. And self-conceit is the deadliest of sins, which is instantly punished.

Yes, after I have conquered my evil inclinations and through loneliness have attained to a certain degree of inward peace, I am caught in the snare of self-satisfaction and despising my neighbour. And self-conceit is the deadliest of sins, which is instantly punished.

How is one to explain the fact that every step of progress in virtue gives rise to a fresh sin?

Swedenborg solves the puzzle by declaring that sins are punishments inflicted on men in requital for sins of the more heinous class. Thus those who are greedy of power are condemned to the hell of the Sodomites.

It is therefore obvious “that all our good works are deadly sins,” and that “the world must become guilty before God, and learn that no one is justified except through grace.”

Let us therefore suffer without hoping for any real joy in life, for, my brothers, we are in hell.

And do not let us accuse the Lord, when we see our little innocent children suffer. No one knows why, but divine justice gives us a ground for surmising that it is on account of sins committed by them before their birth.

The general sleeplessness increases, nervous breakdowns are common, apparitions are matters of every day, and real miracles happen.

People are expecting something.

A young man pays me a visit, and asks, “What must one do in order to sleep quietly at night?”