Abandon all hope, you who enter here. ~ Dante Alighieri

Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope. ~ A. J. Cronin

The day when man remembers all that he strove for, And hell is made manifest to him who sees. As for him who is inordinate and prefers the life of this world, Hell is surely the abode. ~ Quran

If you have come with high expectations of anything, you have come to the wrong place. ~ R. A. Lafferty

The Narakas are the realms of suffering that equate to the Christian hell or, more accurately, to purgatory. If a person is born into one of these realms as a result of bad karma, this is not a permanent punishment - he or she may well be reborn into one of the higher worlds in the next life. ~Jane Alexanderin

You show signs of levity, and that is the one thing not permitted here. This place is for serious persons only.~ R. A. Lafferty

As these erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man's recollection, and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his own salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to "clean his own slate". ~ Alice Bailey

'The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies. ~Virgil

The longer men sin, the more easily they can; for every act of transgression weakens conscience, stupefies intellect, hardens hearts, adds force to bad habits... ~Edward Thompson

Narakas are not only physical places but also states of consciousness – and symbols of the suffering that can take place during life, as well as after death. ~Jane Alexanderin

He knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. Proverbs, IX. 18

Those who committed sinful deeds while on earth become crippled spirits who are incapable of fully breathing in the love of God... Of their own will, they choose to dwell in hell... ~Sun Myung Moon

Hell is a place of pain and suffering found in many religious traditions. Some depict the duration of this punishment as endless, while in others it is an intermediary period between incarnations of life. Many of these traditions locate it beneath the Earth's external surface and often include entrances from the land of the living. Other afterlife destinations include Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise and Limbo.

Quotes

Alphabetized by author or source

• The Narakas are the realms of suffering that equate to the Christian hell or, more accurately, to purgatory. If a person is born into one of these realms as a result of bad karma, this is not a permanent punishment - he or she may well be reborn into one of the higher worlds in the next life. Watched over by Yama, judge of the world, the Narakas are not only physical places but also states of consciousness – and symbols of the suffering that can take place during life, as well as after death.
  • Jane Alexanderin in The Body, Mind, Spirit Miscellany: The Ultimate Collection of Fascinations, Facts, Truths, and Insights, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2009, p. 150

• Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate.
  • Abandon all hope, you who enter here.
  • Dante Alighieri, Inferno (1308-1321)

• Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
  I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
  • Isaac Asimov I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)

• For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life. His consciousness and his sense of awareness are the same and unaltered. He does not sense much difference, is well taken care of, and oft is unaware that he has passed through the episode of death.
  For the wicked and cruelly selfish, for the criminal and for those few who live for the material side only, there eventuates that condition which we call "earth-bound". The links they have forged with earth and the earthward bias of all their desires, force them to remain close to the earth and their last setting in the earth environment. They seek desperately and by every possible means to re-contact it and to re-enter.
  • Alice Bailey, The Way of the Disciple (1934) p. 300/1

• Another fear which induces mankind to regard death as a calamity, is one which theological religion has inculcated... the fear of hell, the imposition of penalties, usually out of all proportion to the errors of a life-time, and the terrors imposed by an angry God. To these man is told he will have to submit, and from them there is no escape, except through the vicarious atonement. There is, as you well know, no angry God, no hell, and no vicarious atonement... the only hell is the earth itself, where we learn to work out our own salvation, actuated by the principle of love and light, and incited thereto by the example of the Christ, and the inner urge of our own souls. This teaching anent hell is a remainder of the sadistic turn which was given to the thinking of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, and to the erroneous teaching to be found in the Old Testament anent Jehovah, the tribal God of the Jews... As these erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man's recollection, and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his own salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to "clean his own slate".
  • Alice Bailey in A Treatise on the Seven Rays: Volume 4: Esoteric Healing. (1953) p 393

• Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. "The Aryan nations had no devil," says Max Muller. "Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way."
  The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place from our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an intermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment; for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the inexorable region — alas! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book. The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable "damned" sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it.
  • H.P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled Vol. II,   Chapter 1, p. 10 (1877)

• The only designation of something approaching hell in the Bible is Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated Tophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary purposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used to sacrifice their children to Moloch-Hercules on that spot; and later we find Christians quietly replacing this divinity by their god of mercy, whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the Church sacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the altar of "eternal damnation"!
  • H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, Chapter I, (1877)

• Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification.
  • Jorge Luis Borges, in "The Library of Babel" (1941)

• Hell is more bearable than nothingness.
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Heaven

• Hell is the wrath of God — His hate of sin.
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Hell, line 194

• Henry Valentine: I-I never thought I could get bored with beautiful dames, but-- look, I wouldn't expect an angel to understand this see? But-but being a big guy with a chick, it didn't mean anything if it's all set up in advance. And I mean, everything is great here, see? Really great. It's just the way I always imagined it except that-that, just between you and me fats, I don't think I belong here. I don't think I fit in.
• Pip: "Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!!"
  • The Twilight Zone A Nice Place to Visit, written by Charles Beaumont, (April 15, 1960)

• The connotation of the Sanskrit word for a hell, Naraka, is a joyless.
  • Alexander Berzin, in Wise Teacher, Wise Student: Tibetan Approaches to a Healthy Relationship, Snow Lion Publications, 16 June 2010, p. 191

• The vision of Christ that thou dost see
  Is my vision's greatest enemy.
  Thine has a great hook nose like thine;
  Mine has a snub nose like to mine.
  Thine is the Friend of all Mankind;
  Mine speaks in parables to the blind.
  Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
  Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.
  • William Blake, in The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)

• The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell dwells within myself.
  • Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1642), Part I, Section LI

• But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
  And there hath been thy bane.
  • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 42

• Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
  The tortures of that inward hell!
  • Lord Byron, The Giaour (1813), line 748

• When the final taps is sounded and we lay aside life's cares,
  And we do the last and glories parade, on Heaven's shining stairs,
  And the angels bid us welcome and the harps begin to play,
  We can draw a million canteen checks and spend them in a day,
  It is then we'll hear St. Peter tell us loudly with a yell,
  "Take a front seat you soldier men, you've done your hitch in Hell."
  • Frank Bernard Camp, "Our Hitch in Hell", st. 6, in American Soldier Ballads (1917), p. 21.
  • A more famous variant was later used as an epitaph of PFC Cameron, USMC, at Lunga Point Cemetery, Guadalcanal:
    • And when he goes to Heaven
      To Saint Peter he will tell:
      Another Marine reporting , Sir;
      I've served my time in Hell!
    • Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 5: The Struggle for Guadalcanal (1949), p. x

• It is reported that Mark Twain, on being asked what he thought of heaven and hell, replied, I'm not going to tell you ---- for I have friends in both places. I could go him one better, for I have had experiences in both places; or rather, experiences in both such levels of consciousness.
  • Howard Ray Carey in Hell or heaven – we make our own, Share International (1988)

• Quien ha infierene nula es retencio.
  • In hell there is no retention.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-1615), I. 25. Sancho Panza, misquoting the saying.

• Just as seeing Heaven's light gave him an awareness of God's presence in all things in the mortal plane, so it has made him aware of God's absence in all things in Hell.
  • Ted Chiang, "Hell Is the Absence of God", in Starlight 3, 2001

• Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope.
  • A. J. Cronin, in The Keys of the Kingdom (1941)

• The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed.
  • Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (1977), p. 110.

• I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, "Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!" It reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, "If there is no God — doubtless there is a hell." I found myself in the midst of it.
  • Stephen Grellet, on his inspiration, when he was still learning English and walking alone in the fields of Long Island, to take up the reading of No Cross, No Crown by William Penn, after having first set it aside upon realizing it was a religious book. In Memoirs of the Life and Gospel Labors of Stephen Grellet (1860), p. 20

• You see, Mr. Simpson—a man, well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!
  • 'The Hunt (The Twilight Zone), The Twilight Zone, (January 26, 1962), written by Earl Hamner, Jr.

• Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651), No. 176

• Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
  My heart detests him as the gates of hell.
  • Homer, in The Iliad as translated by Alexander Pope, Book IX, line 412; the same line, with "soul" for "heart", occurs in Pope's translation of the Odyssey, Book XIV, line 181

• I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.
  • Robert G. Ingersoll What Must We Do To Be Saved? (1880) Section X, "The Evangelical Alliance."

• In the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure — a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend.
  Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell?
  Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy.
• The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.
• The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas.
  • Robert G. Ingersoll The Great Infidels (1881)

• And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.
  • Jesus, in Matthew 10:28

• For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
  • Jesus in Mark 8:36

• The Mahayana stresses the ideal of the bodhisattva, who out of boundless compassion dedicates oneself to helping others. A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, "To hell, for that's where help is needed most."
  • Philip Kapleau, Zen: Dawn in the West (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980), p. 83

• Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
  One thing at least is certain: This life flies.
  One thing is certain and the rest is lies;
  the flower that once has blown forever dies.
  • Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat (1120)

• You show signs of levity, and that is the one thing not permitted here. This place is for serious persons only. If you are not serious now, by hell you'll get serious pretty quick!
  • R. A. Lafferty of the Hell-prison in Space Chantey (1968), Tiresias, in Ch. 7

• This petty place cannot be Hell, Roadstrum? Ah, but it is my friend. That, you see, is the hell of it.
  • R. A. Lafferty of the Hell-prison in Space Chantey (1968), Tiresias, in Ch. 7

• Imagine there's no heaven
  It's easy if you try. No hell below us
  Above us only sky.
  
  • Imagine lyrics by John Lennon

• Wer anders lehret, denn ich hierinn gelehret hab, oder mich darinn verdammt, der verdamt Gott, und muß ein Kind der Höllen bleiben.
  • Whoever teaches differently from what I have taught, or whoever condemns me therein, he condemns God and must remain a child of hell.
  • Deutsche Antwort Luthers auf König Heinrichs von England Buch. German answer of Martin Luther to the Book of King Henry of England, 1522.
  • Dr. Martin Luther's Sämtliche Werke, Polemische Deutsche Schriften, Johann Konrad Irmischer, Erlangen, 1833, vol. 28, p. 347.

• When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of his glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in; naked, and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.” Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, “Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee? Or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? Or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?” And the King shall answer and say unto them, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not.” Then shall they also answer Him, saying, “Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?” Then shall He answer them, saying, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.” And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
  • Matthew 25:31-46

• Why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?
  • George Meyer, "Homer the Heretic", The Simpsons (October 8, 1992); line by character Homer Simpson

• A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
  As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames
  No light, but rather darkness visible
  Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,
  Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
  And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
  That comes to all; but torture without end.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 61

• Hail, horrors, hail,
  Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell,
  Receive thy new possessor.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 251

• Long is the way
  And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 432

• Hell
  Grew darker at their frown.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 719

• On a sudden open fly
  With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
  Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
  Harsh thunder.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 879

• Nor from hell
  One step no more than from himself can fly
  By change of place.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 21

• 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 heaven.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 75

• All hell broke loose.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 918

• The gates that now
  Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame
  Far into Chaos, since the fiend pass'd through.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book X, line 232

• It is not God who decides whether a person's spirit enters heaven or hell upon his death; it is decided by the spirit himself. Humans are created so that once they reach perfection they will fully breathe the love of God. Those who committed sinful deeds while on earth become crippled spirits who are incapable of fully breathing in the love of God. They find it agonizing to stand before God, the center of true love. Of their own will, they choose to dwell in hell, far removed from the love of God.
  • Sun Myung Moon, The Structure and Functions of the Spirit Self, Divine Principle, 1996, Chapter One, Section 6

• Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A woman was punished because she had kept a cat tied until it died, and (as a punishment of this offence) she was thrown into Hell. She had not provided it with food or drink, and had not freed her so that she could eat the insects of the earth.
  • Muhammad narrated in Saheeh Muslim, Book 026, Number 5570

• Stan: We're goin' to church. We've sinned and so we have to confess again.

Butters: Uh us too. Uh we saw a picture of a naked lady. We could see her whole beaver.

Clyde: Yeah. If we died right now, we'd have unclean souls and we'd burn in hell. [the crosswalk light turns green]

Butters: I mean, poor Timmy's gonna go to hell! He can't confess his sins, 'cause all he can say is his name!

• South Park Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?, (July 19, 2000), written by Trey Parker

• Hell Director: Hello, newcomers, and welcome. Can everybody hear me? [taps the mic a few times] Hello? Can everyb--? Okay. [the crowd quiets down] Uh, I'm the hell director. Uh, it looks like we have about 8,615 of you newbies today, and for those of you who are a little confused, uh, you are dead, and this is hell, so, abandon all hope and uh yada yada yada. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation process, which will last about--

Man 4: Hey, wait a minute, I shouldn't be here. I was a totally strict and devout Protestant! I thought we went to heaven!

Hell Director: Yes, well I'm afraid you were wrong.

Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness.

Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well.

Man 5: Well, who was right? Who gets into heaven?

Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer.

Crowd: [disappointed] Awww.

Hell Director: So now I'd like to quickly introduce your new ruler and master for eternity, Satan.

• South Park/Season 4 'Probably (South Park), (July 26, 2000), written by Trey Parker

• To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
  Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle IV, line 149

• So when the great Calamity comes; The day when man remembers all that he strove for, And hell is made manifest to him who sees. Then as for him who is inordinate, And prefers the life of this world, Hell is surely the abode. And as for him who fears to stand before his Lord and restrains himself from low desires, The Garden is surely the abode.
  • Quran, Chapter 79: 34-41

• The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
  • Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 1: The Value of Scepticism

• I do my own penance for my own sins. What do you say, huh? Ah, it's all bullshit except the pain, right? The pain of hell, the burn from a lighted match increased a million times. Infinite, and you don't fuck around with the infinite. There's no way you do that. The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand, the kind you can feel in your heart. Your soul, the spiritual side, and you know the worst of the two is the spiritual.
  • Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin, in Mean Streets (1973); in the context presented in the film this primarily refers to the pain and anguish of Hell, but it was later quoted by Stephen King in IT (1986), in a more ambiguous way which permits it to be interpreted as primarily refering to God, with just the phrase: You don't fuck around with the infinite.

• Worry about your own fortunes, gentlemen. The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers, and mutineers.
• You know nothing of Hell.
  • Captain Jack Sparrow and Koehler from the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

• Black is the badge of hell,
  The hue of dungeons and the suit of night.
  • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act IV, scene 3, line 254

• I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597; published 1602), Act V, scene 5, line 38

• You, mistress,
  That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
  And keeps the gate of hell!
  • William Shakespeare, Othello, IV

• Now the devil that told me I did well
  Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act V, Scene 5

• Hell is empty,
  And all the devils are here.
  • William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610-1612), Act I, scene 2, line 214

• Azrael: Human, have you ever been to Hell? I think not. I'd rather not exist than go back to that.
  • Dogma (film), written by Kevin Smith, (May 21, 1999)

• There are countless circles of hell;
  Believers never penetrate the ninth circle.
  • Dejan Stojanovic in The Sun Watches the Sun, “Inferno” (the first poem in the book) (1999)

• Seth: I know why you lost your faith. How could true holiness exist if your wife can be taken away from you and your children? Now, I always said God can kiss my fuckin' ass. Well, I changed my lifetime tune about thirty minutes ago' cause I know, without a doubt, what's out there trying to get in here is pure evil straight from hell. And if there is a hell, and those monsters are from it, there's got to be a heaven. Now which are you, a faithless preacher or a mean, mother fuckin' servant of God?
  • Quentin Tarantino From Dusk till Dawn, (January 19, 1996)

• Facilis descensus Averno;
  Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis;
  Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras,
  Hoc opus, hic labor est.
  • The gates of hell are open night and day;
    Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
    But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
    In this the task and mighty labor lies.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VI. 126, as translated by John Dryden. ("Averni" in some editions.)
  • Variant translation: Easy is the descent to Lake Avernus (mouth of Hades); night and day the gate of gloomy Dis (god of Hades) is open; but to retrace one's steps, and escape to the upper air, this indeed is a task; this indeed is a toil.

• Quisque suos patimur manis.
  • Each of us bears his own Hell.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), Book VI, 743

• In the throat
  Of Hell, before the very vestibule
  Of opening Orcus, sit Remorse and Grief,
  And pale Disease, and sad Old Age and Fear,
  And Hunger that persuades to crime, and Want:
  Forms terrible to see. Suffering and Death
  Inhabit here, and Death's own brother Sleep;
  And the mind's evil lusts and deadly War,
  Lie at the threshold, and the iron beds
  Of the Eumenides; and Discord wild
  Her viper-locks with bloody fillets bound.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), Book VI, line 336; C. P. Cranch's translation.

• Do you know what Hell really is, Thomas? It's not lakes of burning oil or chains of ice. It's being removed from God's sight, of having His word taken from you. It's hard to believe, Thomas, so hard. I know that better than anyone.
  • Gregory Widen, The Prophecy, (September 1, 1995)

• MARIA: Hell? Is he talking about hell? Good. For a moment I was afraid he was making sense.
  • Elie Wiesel, The Trial of God (1979), Act II

• Abu Umama narrated: "The Messenger of God said, 'Everyone that God admits into paradise will be married to 72 wives; two of them are houris and seventy of his inheritance of the [female] dwellers of hell. All of them will have libidinous sex organs and he will have an ever-erect penis.' "
  • Sunan Ibn Majah, Zuhd (Book of Abstinence) 39

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. ~ John Milton

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• An immortality of pain and tears; an infinity of wretchedness and despair; the blackness of darkness across which conscience will forever shoot her clear and ghastly flashes, — like lightning streaming over a desert when midnight and tempest are there; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; long, long eternity, and things that will make eternity seem longer, — making each moment seem eternity, — oh, miserable condition of the damned!
  • Richard Fuller, p. 311

• What will you do in a world where the Holy Spirit never strives; where every soul is fully left to its own depravity; and where there is no leisure for repentance, if there were even the desire, but where there is too much present pain to admit repentance; where they gnaw their tongues with pain, and blaspheme the God of heaven?
  • James Hamilton, p. 311

• Many might go to heaven with half the labor they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.
  • Ben Jonson, p. 311

• The mind is its own place, and in itself
  Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
  • John Milton, p. 312

• The Lamb is, indeed, the emblem of love; but what so terrible as the wrath of the Lamb? The depth of the mercy despised is the measure of the punishment of him that despiseth. No more fearful words than those of the Saviour. The threatenings of the law were temporal, those of the gospel are eternal. It is Christ who reveals the never-dying worm, the unquenchable fire, and He who contrasts with the eternal joys of the redeemed the everlasting woes of the lost. His loving arms would enfold the whole human race, but not while impenitent or unbelieving; the benefits of His redemption are conditional.
  • Edward Thomson, p. 311

• The longer men sin, the more easily they can; for every act of transgression weakens conscience, stupefies intellect, hardens hearts, adds force to bad habits, and takes force from good example. And, surely, there is nothing in such associations; as wicked affinities will insure to the sinner in the future state, to incline him to repentance.
  • Edward Thompson, p. 312

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God and Religious Toleration/Christianity#Is There a Hell?