It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust—ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable.
The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost; for it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the author.
Why should every individual not have been present more than once in this world? . . . Why should I not come back as often as I am able to acquire new knowledge and new accomplishments? Do I take away so much on one occasion that it may not be worth the trouble coming back?
What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from.
“Sweet sixteen,” Hugh said, kissing her affectionately. “Happy birthday, little bear. Your future’s all ahead of you.” Ursula still harbored the feeling that some of her future was also behind her, but she had learned not to voice such things.
Death, this inescapable mark of human finitude, is in fact the experience that raises all the questions about infinity.
What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more.” . . . Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.”
We talked about immortality, and Ilse said she was afraid of it—afraid of living forever and forever; she said she was sure she would get awfully tired of herself. I said I thought I liked Dean’s idea of a succession of lives . . . and Ilse said that might be all very well if you were sure of being born again as a decent person, but how about it if you weren’t?
It had been a humdrum couple of days, reaffirming his belief in reincarnation: everything was so boring that this could not be the first time he’d experienced it.
We are born again and again on earth, not because of any external pressure, but because we, as souls, desire to grow. The driving power at the back of reincarnation, which brings us to earth again, is the thirst for experience, the desire for knowledge, the yearning to mingle in the throb and rush of physical existence.
What just God would create some men wretched, and others happy and prosperous, if one life were all that they could have?
We all think we’re too important to be snuffed out like candles, and probably that’s how the idea of immortality originated.
Resurrection . . . is one of the most simple things in the world; it is not more surprising to be born twice than once.
Does it not seem too good to be true? . . . We shall all know someday—perhaps. Old people love to look back, they say. It may be because they have much to look back upon. But if the promise of the soul’s reawakening holds good, there is a larger joy in looking forward. To our next meeting then?
If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more.
