Eternity
Existence without beginning or end, or outside time altogether, as many traditions say of God.
Works to read
- On the Heavens by Aristotle, c. 350 BC · Great Books
- On Generation and Corruption by Aristotle, c. 350 BC · Great Books
- Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667; revised 1674 · Great Books
- The Canzoniere (Sonnets and Canzoni), with the Triumphs by Petrarch, c. 1327-1374
- Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, written c. 1862-1863; published 1890
- On the Incarnation of the Word by Athanasius of Alexandria, c. 318–337
- No Cross, No Crown by William Penn, 1669
- Our Town by Thornton Wilder, 1938
Passages
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me
— Blaise Pascal, Pensees
I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men
— John Milton, Paradise Lost
coming-to-be should itself come-to-be perpetually' is the closest approximation to eternal being
— Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption
And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal
— Aristotle, Metaphysics
pleasure is not the first of possessions, nor yet the second, but that in measure, and the mean, and the suitable, and the like, the eternal nature has been found
— Plato, Philebus
By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation
— John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: eternity, eternal, everlasting. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.