One cannot walk through an assembly factory and not feel that one is in Hell.
Hell is out of fashion -- institutional hells at any rate. The populated infernos of the 20th century are more private affairs, the gaps between the bars are the sutures of one's own skull. A valid hell is one from which there is a possibility of redemption, even if this is never achieved, the dungeons of an architecture of grace whose spires point to some kind of heaven. The institutional hells of the present century are reached with one-way tickets, marked Nagasaki and Buchenwald, worlds of terminal horror even more final than the grave.
Of all the inhabitants of the inferno, none but Lucifer knows that hell is hell, and the secret function of purgatory is to make of heaven an effective reality.
And what have you laymen made of hell? A kind of penal servitude for eternity, on the lines of your convict prisons on earth, to which you condemn in advance all the wretched felons your police have hunted from the beginning -- enemies of society, as you call them. You're kind enough to include the blasphemers and the profane. What proud or reasonable man could stomach such a notion of God's justice? And when you find that notion inconvenient it's easy enough for you to put it on one side. Hell is not to love any more, Madame. Not to love any more!
Hell is paved with great granite blocks hewn from the hearts of those who said, I can do no other.
I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.
To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell.
The hell of these days is the fear of not getting along, especially of not making money.
There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here!
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.
I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
Hell is a half-filled auditorium.
To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.
When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell.
Hell is paved with good Samaritans.
Hell is where everyone is doing his own thing. Paradise is where everyone is doing God's thing.
There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
The safest road to hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
If I'm going to Hell, I'm going there playing the piano.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd one self place; for where we are is Hell, and where Hell is, there must we ever be.
It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
O Lord, wandering with thee, even hell itself would be to me a heaven of bliss.
— Ramayana
I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.
For mortal men there is but one hell, and that is the folly and wickedness and spite of his fellows; but once his life is over, there's an end to it: his annihilation is final and entire, of him nothing survives.
Hell is other people.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.
Hell is the highest reward that the devil can offer you for being a servant of his.
If there is no Hell a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.
The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.
The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.
One of the horrors of hell is the undying memory of a misspent life.
It does not require a decision to go to hell.
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
When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.