"He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine."
~
Wuthering Heights
by
Emily Bronte
It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.
~
Hard Times
by
Charles Dickens
Can we outrun the heavens?
~
Henry VI, Part Two
by
William Shakespeare
What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be it what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.
~
Uncle Tom's Cabin
by
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.
~
Old Christmas
by
Washington Irving
We must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and Heaven's pleasure.
~
Barnaby Rudge
by
Charles Dickens
In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.
~
The Old Curiosity Shop
by
Charles Dickens
"Men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell; and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving."
~
Man And Superman
by
George Bernard Shaw
"Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd."
~
The Mourning Bride
by
William Congreve
For his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing.
~
Vanity Fair
by
William Makepeace Thackeray