hell

   You stars that reigned at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist, Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud, That when you vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.

—Marlowe, Christopher

Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has cummings thoroughly and perfectlyannihilated by that vast and painful process of Unthinking which may result in a minutebitof purelypersonal Feeling.Whichminutebit is Art. colossal faults, but onething cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.

—cummings, e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings

OThou that in the heavens does dwell! Wha, as it pleases best Thysel, Sends ane to heaven, an'ten to hell, A'forThy glory, And no for ony gude or ill They've done beforeThee!

—Burns, Robert

Je me crois en enfer, donc j'y suis. I believe myself to be in hell; therefore I am.

—Rimbaud, (Jean Nicolas) Arthur

But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee Came not all hell broke loose?

—Milton,John

   Prisons, cachots, lieux be¤  nis o  u' le mal est impossible, puisqu'ils sont le carrefour de toute la male¤  diction du monde. On ne peut pas commettre le mal dans le mal. Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible becausetheyarethe crossroads of all the evil in the world.One cannot commit evil in hell.

—Genet,Jean

Avirtuous man can almost cease to believe in Hell, but he carried Hell about with him. Sometimes at night he dreamed of it† Evil ran like malaria in his veins.

—Greene, (Henry) Graham

Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace.

—Gray,Thomas

   O gentle Faustus, leave this damne'  d art, This magic, that will charm thy soul to hell.

—Marlowe, Christopher

But childhood prolonged cannot remain a fairy-land. It becomes a hell.

—Bogan, Louise

Where there is then no good For which to strive, no strife can grow up there From faction; for none sure will claim in hell Prece¤  dence, none, whose portion is so small Of present pain, that with ambitious mind Will covet more.

—Milton,John

: What do you think of marriage? : I take't, as those that deny purgatory, It locally contains or heaven, or hell; There's no third place in't.

—Webster,John

The curse of hell upon the sleek upstart That got the Captain finally on his back And took the red red vitals of his heart And made the kites to whet their beaks clack clack.

—Ransom,John Crowe

Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high asheaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measurethereof islonger thanthe earth, and broader than the sea.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Briefing for a Descent into Hell.

—Lessing, Doris May ne¤  e Tayler

To the Glorious,Pious, and Immortal Memory of King William theThird,Prince of Orange, who delivered us from Popes and Popery, Knaves and Knavery, Slaves and Slavery, Brass Money, and Wooden Shoes, and He that Will Not Take thisToast May He Be Damn'd,Cramm'd, and Jamm'd Down the Great Gun of Athlone, and the Gun Fired in the Pope's Belly, and the Pope Fired in the Devil's Belly, and the Devil Fired into Hell, and the Door Lock'd, and the Key Forever in the Pocket of a Stout Orangeman. And Here's a Fart for the Bishop of Cork!

—Anonymous

In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief, inTibbald's monster-breeding breast; Sees Gods with Daemons in strange league ingage, And earth, and heav'n, and hell her battles wage.

—Pope, Alexander

Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore: So fair a summer look for never more. All good things vanish, less than in a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year; The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.

—Nashe,Thomas

England istheparadise of women, thepurgatoryof men, and the hell of horses.

—Florio,John

It is, we believe, Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump Can extinguish hell.

—Reed, Henry

Oh, yes, thy sins Do run before thee to fetch fire from hell, To light thee thither.

—Webster,John

An admiral red, whose only notion, (A butterfly poised on a pigtailed ocean) Is of the peruked sea whose swell Breaks on the flowerless rocks of Hell.

—Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa

   I would renounce, therefore, the attempt to create heaven on earth, and focus instead on reducing the hell.

—Borovoy, A Alan

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

—Bible (NewTestament)

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

—Shaw, George Bernard

The folk that livein Liverpool, their heart isintheir boots; They go to hell like lambs, they do, because the hooter hoots.

—Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)

I've often thought I should like to have a set of postcards printed: 'Dear Sir or Madam,Thank you for your communication.Go to hell.Yours sincerely.'

—Elliott, Sir Claude Aurelius

Edward Hopper is the great painter of American hell in the 20th century, the limner-laureate of the beauty, poignance, eternityand bone-ache disquietude of life.

—Allen, Henry Southworth

Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, Didst makeThy triumph over death and sin; And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win:

—Spenser, Edmund

Most glorious Lord of Life! that, on this day, Didst makeThy triumph over death and sin; And having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win:

—Spenser, Edmund

Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell's despair.

—Blake,William

   The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

—Milton,John

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell;The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost;The holy Catholick Church;The Communion of Saints;The Forgiveness of sins;The Resurrection of the body, And the life everlasting. Amen.

—Book of Common Prayer

Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.

—Congreve,William

Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

—Bible (Old Testament)

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on earth.

—Lewis, C(live) S(taples)

Making a picture with Marilyn Monroe was like going to the dentist. It was hell at thetime, but after it was all over it was wonderful.

—Wilder, Billy (Samuel)

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And thesea gave up the dead whichwere in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And deathand hell were cast intothelake of fire.

—Bible (NewTestament)

And I looked, and beholda palehorse: and hisnamethat sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what Love did seek.

—Milton,John

   Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place; but where we are is hell, And where hell is, there must we ever be: And, to be short, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that is not heaven.

—Marlowe, Christopher

Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease And builds a hell in heaven's despite.

—Blake,William

Hell is a city much like Londonö A populous and smoky city.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.

—Johnson, Paul

Hell isfull of musical amateurs: music isthebrandyofthe damned.

—Shaw, George Bernard

L'Enfer, c'est les Autres. Hell is other people.

—Sartre,Jean-Paul

L'enfer, Madame, c'est de ne plus aimer. Hell, Madam, is to no longer love.

—Bernanos, Georges

Je sais la douleur est la noblesse unique O  u' ne mordront jamais la terre et les enfers. I know that pain is the one nobility upon which Hell itself cannot encroach.

—Baudelaire, Charles

He trailed the clouds of his own gloryafter him; hell lay about him in his infancy. He was ready for more deaths. SeeWordsworth 926:24.

—Greene, (Henry) Graham

Surely, it is in youth man is most thoroughly depraved. Hell lies about us in our infancy. The youthful innocency sung by aged poets (who forget their first childhood) is nothing but ignorance of evil. As the child comes to know evil, he loves it.

—Mishima,Yukio pseudonym of  Hiraoka Kimitake

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heav'n.

—Milton,John

We doctors know a hopeless case ifölisten: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go

—cummings, e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings

   Like being the captain of a mine-sweeper, if you do your job well, nobody notices.If you don't, there's a hell of an explosion.

—Catto, Henry E(dward)

Politics is just like show business†a hell of an opening, you coast for a while, you have a hell of a closing.

—Reagan, Ronald Wilson

But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

—Shaw, George Bernard

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

—Milton,John

Heaven's splendour over his head, Hell's darkness under his feet.

—Carlyle,Thomas

Watch for me by moonlight; I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

—Noyes, Alfred

   Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n. On the Detraction Which Follow'd†

—Milton,John

No deliverer ever rose from these stone tombs to get the hell they made unmade.

—Morgan, Edwin George

Horror and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The hell within him, for within him hell He brings, and round about him, nor from hell One step no more than from himself can fly.

—Milton,John

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Thislittlesteamer, likeall herbraveand battered sisters,is immortal. She'll go sailing proudly down the years in the epic of Dunkirk. And our great-great-grand-children, when they learn how we began this war by snatching glory out of defeat, and then swept on to victory, may also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious.

—Priestley,J(ohn) B(oynton)

When I first came to Washington, for the first six months I wondered how the hell I ever got here. For the next six months, I wondered how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

—Truman, Harry S

I have only one purposeöthe destruction of Hitler, and my life ismuch simplified thereby.If Hitler invaded Hell,I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

—Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.

—Plath, Sylvia

I myself am hell.

—Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr

Ah,Tam! Ah,Tam! thou'll get thy fairin! In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin!

—Burns, Robert

Nor jealousy Was understood, the injured lover's hell.

—Milton,John

Ulysses†is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.

—Forster, E(dward) M(organ)

Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.

—Tennyson

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

—Bible (NewTestament)

For thou hast powerof life and death: thou leadesttothe gates of hell, and bringest up again.

—Bible (Apocrypha)

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.

—Borman, Frank

Philosophie! dont la lumie'  re, comme celle des enfers de Milton, ne sert qu'a'   rendre les te¤  ne'  bres visibles. Philosophy! In whose light, like that in Milton's hell, only serves to make the shadows visible.

—Nerval, Ge¤  rard de pseudonym of  Ge¤  rard Labrunie

There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away.

—Mailer, Norman Kingsley

Whose love isgiven over-well Shall look on Helen's face in hell Whilst they whose love is thin and wise Shall see John Knox in Paradise.

—Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild

Love is a Dog from Hell.

—Bukowski, Charles

   Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If Isay, Surely the darknessshall cover me; even thenight shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

—Bible (Old Testament)

   Some might say they don't believe in heaven Go and tell it to the man who lives in hell.

—Gallagher, Noel

I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is hell.

—Truman, Harry S

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot.You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away.

—Salinger,J(erome) D(avid)

One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague.

—Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior

To rest, the cushion and soft Dean invite, Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.

—Pope, Alexander

The City is of Night, but not of Sleep; There sweet Sleep is not for the weary brain; The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, A night seems termless hell.

—Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis

Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people Living for today.

—Lennon,JohnWinston

In ten thousand years the Sierras Will be dryand dead, home of the scorpion. Ice-scratched slabs and bent trees. No paradise, no fall, Only the weathering land The wheeling sky, Man, with his Satan Scouring the chaos of the mind. Oh Hell!

—Snyder, Gary Sherman

Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

—Milton,John

West Africa today is just a quarry of paving stones for Hell, and those stones were cemented in place with

—Kingsley, Mary Henrietta

This is the end of the whaleroad and the whale Who spewed Nantucket bones on the thrashed swell And stirred the troubled waters to whirlpools To send the Pequod packing off to hell

—Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr

   There was a frightful, appalling row. As a matter of fact the Pope told us all to go to hell. He threatened to silence Father Fahrt.

—Cruise

Quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

—Rochdale

Son of a whore,God damn you! can you tell A Peerless Peer the readiest way to Hell?

—Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of

Let none admire That riches grow in hell; that soil may best Deserve the precious bane.

—Milton,John

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

—Roth, Philip Milton

What is to prevent a daily newspaper from being made the greatest organ of social life? Books have had their dayöthe theatres have had their dayöthe temple of religion has had its day. A newspaper can be made to take the lead of all these in the great movements of human thought and of human civilisation. A newspaper can send more souls to Heaven, and save more from Hell, than all the churches or chapels in New Yorköbesides making money at the same time.

—Bennett,James Gordon, Snr

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole 1Timothy body, and setteth on firethe course of nature; and it isset on fire of hell.

—Bible (NewTestament)

   Wanwordy, crazy, dinsome thing, As e'er was fram'd to jow or ring, What gar'd them sic in steeple hing They ken themsel', 320

—Fergusson, Robert

I don't give people hell. I tell them the truth and they think it's hell.

—Keane, Roy

I have spoken so far only of the blissful visionary experience† But visionary experience is not always blissful. It's sometimes terrible. There is hell as well as heaven.

—Huxley, Aldous Leonard

There may be heaven; there must be hell.

—Browning, Robert

There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit.Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply callisthenics with words.

—Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild

Have I a wife? Bedam I have! But we was badly mated. Ihit hera greatclout onenight And now we'reseparated. And mornin's going to me work I meets her on the quay: 'Good mornin'to you, ma'am!'says I,'To hell with ye!' says she.

—Strong, L(eonard) A(lfred) G(eorge)

Meanwhile the Adversary of God and man, Satan with thoughts inflamed of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight.

—Milton,John

Died some, pro patria, non'dulce'non'et decor'† walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie, home to many deceits home to old lies and new infamy; usuryage-old and age-thick and liars in public places.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

There is manya boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.

—Sherman,WilliamTecumseh

The gentle and respectful ways of saying 'To hell with you'are being abandoned.

—Fergusson, Robert

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

—Owen,Wilfred

What is hell? Hell is oneself, Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to.One is always alone.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

When the sun shall be darkened, when the stars shall be thrown down, when the mountains shall be set moving, when the pregnant camels shall be neglected, when the savage beasts shall be mustered, when the seas shall be set boiling, when the souls shall be coupled, when the buried infant shall be asked for what sin she was slain, when the scrolls shall be unrolled, when heaven shall be stripped off, when Hell shall be set blazing, when Paradise shall be brought nigh, then shall a soul know what it has produced.

—The Koran

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast intohell. And ifthy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Of dire chimeras and enchanted isle And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell,^ö For such there be, but unbelief is blind.

—Milton,John

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Thinkst thou that I who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss!

—Marlowe, Christopher

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

—Bible (Old Testament)

We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.

—Bible (Old Testament)

I have tried if I could reach that great resolution†to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.

—Browne, SirThomas

To write about hell it helps if you have been there.

—Fiennes, Sir Ranulph

I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall) Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

—Herrick, Robert