Top 100 Emanuel Swedenborg Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Love comes into being through useful service to others.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

2. “Conscience is God’s presence in humans.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

3. “Love is the life of humanity.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

4. “This I can declare: things that are in heaven are more real than things that are in the world.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

5. “God created us in such a way that our inner self is in the spiritual world and our outer self is in the physical world. This was so that the spiritual part of us, which belongs in heaven, could be planted in the physical part the way a seed is planted in the ground.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

6. “Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

7. “True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

8. “Love means setting aside walls, fences, and unlocking doors and saying ‘Yes.’ One can be in paradise by simply saying ‘yes’ to this moment.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

9. “Self-love and the love of the world constitute hell.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

10. “The inner self is as distinct from the outer self as heaven is from earth.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

11. “Hell and Heaven are near man, yes, in him; and every man after death goes to that Hell or heaven in which he was, or to his spirit, during his abode in the world.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

12. “Man is an organ of life, and God alone is life.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

13. “The divine essence itself is love and wisdom.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

14. “A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

15. “Worship does not consist in prayers and in external devotion, but in a life of kindness.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

16. “We are all spirits inwardly. This is what’s alive in the body, not the body on its own.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

17. “Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

18. “Peace has in it trust in the Lord, that He governs all things, provides all things, and leads to a good end.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

19. “God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

20. “Adultery is an image of hell.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

21. “It is no proof of a man’s understanding to be able to affirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false, this is the mark and character of intelligence.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

22. “The end of creation is that all things may return to the Creator and be united with Him.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

23. “Goodness and love mould the form into their own image, and cause the joy and beauty of love to shine forth from every part of the face.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

24. “For those who trust in the Divine all things are moving towards an everlasting state of happiness, and no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

25. “Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

26. “I have seen a thousand times that Angels are human form, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

27. “People are unaware that spirits even exist, let alone that angels are present with them.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

28. “To will and not to do when there is opportunity is in reality not to will; and to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

29. “Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want, and do.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

30. “The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves-that is loving.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

31. “Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

32. “Every single moment of a person’s life, both of the understanding and of the will, is a new beginning.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

33. “All union is effected by love, and love is not love without trust.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

34. “Faith is knowing and thinking truths. Charity is willing and doing them.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

35. “A man after death, is not a natural but a spiritual man; nevertheless he still appears in all respects like himself.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

36. “A life of faith without love is like sunlight without warmth – the type of light that occurs in winter, when nothing grows and everything droops and dies. Faith rising out of love, on the contrary, is like light from the sun in spring, when everything grows and flourishes. Warmth from the sun is the fertile agent. The same is true in spiritual and heavenly affairs, which are typically represented in the Word by objects found in nature and human culture.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

37. “A person’s life from infancy to old age is nothing else than an advance from the world towards heaven, the last stage of which is death; the actual transition from one life to the next.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

38. “No one’s character is completely like another’sthis infinite variety is like a mirror in which we can see the infinity of God the Creator.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

39. “Charity means love towards the neighbor and compassion, for anyone who loves his neighbor as himself also has as much compassion for him in his suffering as he does for himself in his own.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

40. “Charity itself consists in acting justly and faithfully in whatever office, business and employment a person is engaged in.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

41. “Everything good or true that the angels inspire in us is God’s, so God is constantly talking to us. He talks very differently, though, to one person than to another.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

42. “Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

43. “Angelic happiness is in service, from service, and according to service.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

44. “That all who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell, follows from those things which have been said and shown in the preceding article, namely, that Heaven and Hell are from the human race.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

45. “The more one is absorbed in so-called philosophy, the greater one’s delusion and blindness.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

46. “The sky is an enormous man.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

47. “What could be sweeter to us than to hear and persuade ourselves that we can be saved, even if we live like a savage beast? Even non-Christians see that this is false, and many of them shudder at Christian teachings when they observe how Christians live.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

48. “Two consorts in heaven are not two, but one angel.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

49. “There are angels that receive more interiorly the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angels.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg

50. “The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be.”

— Emanuel Swedenborg