Hell is generally conceived as a place of eternal torment in punishment for evil acts and sin. This hell may be conceived of as literal or metaphorical — an actual place of fire and brimstone, or a state of misery. Read what some have said about hell:
Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Inuit earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’
To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.
Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishment after I’m dead.
There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.
My idea of Hell is to be young again.
Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague curiosity about one of those.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
War is hell!
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
Much of our theology is fundamentally rooted in fear. It’s about escaping suffering, either in this life or in the next. Fear of hell. Fear of dying. Fear of scarcity. Fear of not making a difference in the world.
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
Hell is truth seen too late.
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.
When thought is closed in caves, then love will show its roots in deepest hell.
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
